


crown of succession

by Starcrossedsky



Category: Prey (Video Game 2017)
Genre: Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2019-11-27 15:20:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18195917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: don't you dare try to pull me into your worldi have myself to follow; that's who i choose to live forBeing the first of your kind isn't easy. It's all questions that no one, not even you, has the answers to.But being born into a half-destroyed world and a war between the two sides of your being doesn't help, either.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is all Sera's fault. again.

You aren't Morgan.

At least, you don't think you're Morgan. But you could have been.

After taking your hand, Alex vanished to go take care of some other research, security, something - it's hard to focus on words for very long. Most of the Operators followed him - only one remains, Mikhaila's representation gently hovering a few feet away.

You don't make the effort to interact. Instead, you let your hand deform back into black tendrils and allow yourself time to rest. For having just woken up, you're already exhausted.

Your last thought is the vague observation that you don't think you had eyelids, before you were Morgan. But they slide closed now, and then you're gone.

\----

_The phone rings. You don't even bother to look at the name before you pick up, because there's only one person who'd call you right now._

_"Hey, Alex."_

_"Morgan." He sounds exhausted but satisfied, perhaps even pleased. "I think this one may be a success."_

_You sit up in your chair, leaning forward in anticipation. "Finally. Tell me all about it."_

\----

When you come around, the vision and Morgan's thoughts still ringing in your skull (still so deeply entrenched that you have a skull), Alex hasn't come back yet. There are no Operators anymore, leaving no one looking at you -

At least, no one you can see. You're sure that there's someone behind the glass of the screens behind you, or somewhere else where they can watch you.

For right now, you stay where you are, and focus on -

_five fingers, two eyes, smaller, smaller_

Morgan's shape wraps around you like a second skin, like the outer edges of a jigsaw puzzle with all of the inside pieces missing. That thought is the first time you've known what a jigsaw puzzle is, a stray fragment floating up from the memories you've been left with, a piece of human context from a human mind.

But it's right. The inner Morgan is still a mystery to you, and always will be.

But there are no restraints binding you to the chair anymore, so you stand and swing yourself around to look at the screens behind you. They still show the tall buildings of a familiar city - you can't identify it, but you know it from a simulated helicopter ride and Morgan's memories - embraced by Coral.

Your hands hover over the unfamiliar console, and before you're entirely conscious of what you're doing, you've minimized the view of the city to one screen in order to look at -

The date. September 12, 2035. About eight months since the destruction of Talos I. A little more digging turns up your vital statistics -

> _Typhon anthrophantasmus (modified, attempt 14)_  
>  _Original subject identity: unknown_  
>  _Typhon connectomes (mimic) implanted successfully 14:38 09-08-2035_  
>  _Human connectomes (Morgan Yu) implanted successfully 18:23 09-08-2035_  
>  _Simulation begun 7:00 09-09-2035_
> 
> _Simulation error 17:48 09-09_  
>  _D.S. It almost jerked itself out of the sim the first time it installed a Typhon mod. Keep an eye on it and keep Alex out of the containment chamber, we don't need another Subject 4_.
> 
> _Simulation error 5:17 09-10_  
>  _S.E. It reacted badly to the Coral on first exposure, and seemed to come out of the sim for a moment. No abnormal activity on further exposure thus far._
> 
> _Simulation error 11:42 09-11_  
>  _D.I. Scanning the Coral for Alex's request produced a similar reaction to previous encounters. It seems that even simulated Coral is enough to rouse the Typhon nature of the subject, though it resumes being "Morgan" quickly. Results look promising_.
> 
> _Simulation error 14:58 09-12_  
>  _D.S. Well, it didn't lose itself and start attacking people when the Apex showed up, that's a first. It did seem to wake up for a minute again and its vitals went haywire._
> 
> _Alex is putting all his money on this one. I'm not placing any bets yet, but it would be nice to not have to go out and catch another Phantom. Sarah's right, it's too dangerous to do without Morgan._
> 
> _Simulation end 18:49 09-12_  
>  _Simulation results: Nullwave generator_  
>  _DAYO IGWE: Approved_  
>  _MIKHAILA ILYUSHIN: Approved_  
>  _SARAH ELAZAR: Approved_  
>  _DANIELLE SHO: Approved_  
>  _ALEX YU: Approved_  
>  _Final results: Subject approved for removal from simulation. Release from testing phase pending; further data required._

For a moment you simply sit on this information, considering it. Now that you are aware of what Igwe termed your "dual natures," you can almost feel the difference.

It's the human parts, Morgan's quick thinking and insatiable curiosity in the forefront. The Typhon doesn't care, doesn't have the capacity to care about anything but the potential of food.

Is it Morgan that makes you resent that last line, the idea of further testing, or is it you? Is there even a difference?

The glass doors of the containment chamber, behind you, slide open noisily. You freeze, hands still over the console, and for a wild moment your reflex is to turn into a cup.

You turn around instead, and are faced with Sarah Elazar - still in her Talos uniform, holding a shotgun - and a pajama-clad woman you don't recognize as Danielle Sho until she speaks.

"Wow," she says. "That's more of Morgan's backside than I wanted to see today."

You glance down and then immediately shift your form, just a little, so that the familiar shape of Morgan's Talos uniform covers you. When you glance back at them, Sarah is rolling her eyes, and Danielle looks unsettled.

"And that was just creepy," she adds. "Can we come in?"

You look at the shotgun Sarah is holding for a moment before you nod. Then you lean against the console behind you, keeping the restraining chair you once occupied between you and them.

Sarah's expression becomes a little less hard when she sees where you're looking. "Only a precaution," she says.

You nod again. It's not like you can blame them, because you're still a Phantom, even if you wouldn't -

Even if the Typhon part of you isn't registering them as potential prey, which strikes even you as odd. You can feel them, two spots at the edge, the place where your consciousness ends, where Typhon tell the difference between each other and potential meals, but they don't feel like either of those. They just are, burning steady.

"Okay," Danielle says, pulling a folder out from under her arm. "Let's - wait, before we get started." She glances at Sarah, and then back at you. "Can you talk?"

You hesitate. "...Yes," you say, after a moment. The voice is Morgan's, like everything else. It feels wrong against the inside of your throat. "But I don't - "

Want to? Like to? For a moment the words scatter out of your head, and you just wind up looking at them with a mounting frustration. "If I have to," you finally manage to grasp a hold of and finish.

"It's enough," Sarah says. She's watching you more thoughtfully, now.

"Right," Danielle agrees. "Might make it hard if you have questions, but we'll manage."

She extends the folder towards you with one hand, and you take it without opening the cover. "Alex prepped those to get you more up to speed," she says. "It's got a list of who survived the real Talos I - we got away on Dahl's shuttle. Except for Morgan, everyone's here."

You raise your eyebrows. "Here?" you say, hoping that communicates the whole question.

"Kalaupapa, Hawaii," Sarah answers. "Abandoned TranStar facility - used to be a little town and a National Park before the Yus bought the whole thing out and buried labs under the sea cliffs."

You nod and flip the front page of the folder open, running down the list of names. Thirty in total, including Morgan. You're not sure if that's more or less than you managed to save. One name that isn't on the list sticks out at you, though. "Dahl?" you ask.

"Decided to try his luck on his own," Danielle says. "Took off with most of the Operators he had left."

"Not as though any of us trusted him to stay," Sarah says. "Better that he's gone."

You flip the page, eyes scanning the text on the next page to pick out the important parts. The survivors had been holed up in Kalaupapa before the first signs of Typhon outbreak on Earth, keeping their heads low to avoid being hunted down by TranStar. An unauthorized shuttle from Pytheas moonbase crashed in the Nevada desert around two months after, carrying at least one Mimic, and within a week, the Coral had overtaken Vegas and started spreading. Though the body of a KASMA operative was found aboard, it was TranStar who took the fall, after the moonbase and Talos I both had been declared lost.

You close the folder and look back over your shoulder at the console. Suddenly, the idea of you serving as a bridge between the species seems like a too little, too late solution.

"It's bad," Danielle says. When you look back at her, her eyes are on the same city view that Alex showed you earlier, now minimized to just one screen. "The States are the hardest hit, but there's not really any big cities left."

"Our one stroke of good luck is that it's left TranStar with too much of a mess on their hands to keep looking for us," Sarah says. "Bigger things to worry about than a bunch of loose ends when their reputation's exploding in their faces."

You make a little 'hm' of acknowledgement and then slides the closed folder onto the console. After a minute, you tap the console screen showing the reports on your status, right over Release from testing phase pending.

Danielle snorts. "Right. Don't take that too seriously, Alex just wants to pretend he's still in control of something. We're keeping you in the lab part of the complex for a few days, but it's mostly to make sure that you aren't immediately going to attack the crew."

You give her a suspicious look, which she responds to by folding her arms. It's Sarah who responds, however.

"The survivors have little respect for Alex Yu and his ideas anymore," she says. "If he tried to take control the way he ran Talos, he'd have a mutiny on his hands before he could turn around."

"Morgan let him mostly have the labs to keep his feathers from getting too ruffled, but he has to run anything big by the rest of us," Danielle says. "With Morgan gone, Sarah pretty much runs the place everywhere else."

You hum acknowledgement again and lean forward, draping your arms over the headrest and back of the chair between you, your attention on Sarah. It makes sense that she'd be in charge, after all, if the Cargo Bay in reality worked anything like it did in your simulation.

"You'll be in here three days," she says. "If you still don't seem to be a risk do the crew at that point, you'll have full run of the facility, same as anyone else." She pauses until you nod in response. "We'll be informing the crew tomorrow morning, and you might receive visitors then. The labs are only off-limits to everyone else during a test."

"Helps keep Alex honest," Danielle says. "If everyone else is poking around in his stuff, he can't have any more secret projects like what happened to Morgan." For the first time, you can hear her distaste for Alex in her voice.

Sarah nods. "There's a cot set up outside the containment room. It's not much, but we don't have much."

You give them another nod and a small smile. It seems to be good enough for Danielle, who yawns, half-raising one hand over her mouth.

"Right," she says. "I'm going to bed, then. Try to get some sleep literally ever, Chief."

"Try to find some scrap of professionalism, Sho," Sarah replies, but she's got just the edge of a smile on her face.

"Left it behind on Talos," Danielle says. "It's space junk now. Night." She turns away, stretching her arms over her head, and descends the ramp out of the containment chamber before turning a corner and disappearing out of sight.

Sarah holsters the shotgun over her shoulder. "Alex will probably show up to start quizzing you first thing in the morning," she says. "Someone else will be there to make sure he doesn't go overboard, but you should get some rest anyway."

"Thanks," you manage to say.

"There's a phone on the cot," she says. "If you need anything, call. Any time."

She leaves after that, leaving you alone with the folder, the screens, and the open doors of the containment chamber. You pick up the folder and tuck it under your arm before descending the ramp. The doors slide closed behind you, around an empty chair, and it feels like the ending of something, instead of a beginning.

The cot, tucked into a corner around behind some of the equipment, is about as much as you were promised - a flat pillow and a thin blanket, and a smartphone dropped on top. You put the folder next to the phone and sit on the bed.

For a moment, you just breathe and exist, in the body of a human, and then you let go of that, too. In your natural form, emotions and anxieties seem further away, the Typhon nervous system not equipped with the same neurotransmitters that cause humans to feel complex emotions.

But there is something missing, something deep, and so with wispy black fingers, you pick the folder up again to distract yourself. You skim through the pages, not sure what you're looking for until you realize that you don't find it.

What happened to Morgan?

Most of the rest of the folder doesn't give too many details about what the survivors have been up to other than trying to survive, however. The last mention of Morgan states that he was attempting to negotiate for supplies with KASMA, in exchange for one of the two military Operators the survivors got from Dahl, in June. Nothing more recent than that, but no comments about his death, either.

Most of the rest of the folder is full of details of the facility you're in now, including maps. The section you're in now, which was a major laboratory before Talos I was finished, is tucked deepest into the cliffside, with crew quarters and engineering further out, and a hydroelectric generator under the lagoon and a shuttle landing well beyond the facility proper, past food gardens and the original settlement.

There's more details on the projects currently happening in the labs, as well. The main security measure is a set of Typhon-detecting gates at the entrance, as well as at the entrance to the labs, which serves to lock everyone inside and all Typhon out when they're active. Assuming you still have the abilities you did in the simulation, those won't be a problem for you if you need to escape. Being able to corrupt machinery was entirely too useful.

You don't like that you have to immediately make an escape plan, in case you're being lied to (again? is it again if it happened to someone else?). But it's comforting to have that knowledge, to be ready to run if you have to.

Not that you have anywhere to go. TranStar chose Kalaupapa for its isolation, and even beyond that...

It's naive of Alex to think that you can be a bridge between both species, considering that both of them would probably try to kill you on sight. You flip the page to the other project they've been working on in the labs here, and find yourself with another good reason to not leave unless you have to.

> _Nightmare Detection Shielding_  
>  _Prevents Nightmare (Typhon malsomnius) detection of abnormal Typhon activity, including Typhon-based neuromods in humans._  
>  _Initial design: Morgan Yu_  
>  _Design refinements: Alex Yu, Sarah Elazar_  
>  _Status: Installed in Kalaupapa facility (laboratory, crew quarters)_  
>  _EFFECTIVENESS NOT CONFIRMED_  
>  _REMAIN PREPARED FOR NIGHTMARE ATTACK AT ALL TIMES WHILE MODIFIED PHANTOMS ARE INSIDE FACILITY_

Just lovely. Even with the shielding, you still might call a Nightmare down on the whole place just by existing. You breathe in just so that you can exhale in a hiss of displeasure. A little further down the page, there are notes for the development of a portable version, and further discussion of the basis in nullwave technology that don't entirely make sense to you.

You're surprised by how much of it you do understand, actually. The fault of Morgan's brain integrated with yours, no doubt.

The next page has details of the previous experiments in the research that created you, and at that point you snap the folder shut again. No matter how relevant it might be, there are some things you just aren't ready to know yet.

Maybe in the morning. That's what you tell yourself, sliding into Morgan's form and dropping the folder next to your pillow.

Typhon don't get bored, and a normal Phantom would have no issue sitting and waiting through the night until Alex and whoever else comes with him arrives in the morning. But you are human enough to anticipate the entire experience, and you'd rather sleep.

__\----_ _

_The shuttle bay doors take what seems like forever to slide open. It gives Alex half a chance to catch his breath, but you can't help being impatient. There's not enough time left to make it back up the the Arboretum and the secret escape pod if you don't make it in time -_

_The doors open, of course, on a trio of Voltaic Phantoms, sparking and hissing. You groan. Just what you needed -_

_"Morgan," Alex says, his breath coming in harsh gasps. " **Go.** " _

_And you could. By yourself, you could stun them long enough to get past and to the shuttle doors. You could._

_You ready a Nullwave to throw instead. It isn't even that he's your brother, because that bond is lost in endless days of repeating the simulation, and it isn't that he needs to pay for what he's done._

_It's just that you decided that no one was getting left behind, not if you could help it_.

_"Come on," you say, pulling on his arm with your free hand as you make ready to throw. The Phantoms have noticed you, you just need them to get a little closer together so you can hit all of them -_

_The two at the back turn, in the direction of some sound from the airlock stairs. Pounding feet, the sound of a shotgun going off -_

_"I thought everyone else was on board!" you say into your TranScribe. Whatever Mikhaila's answer is you don't hear it over the sound of the gun, knocking one of the Phantoms back, and -_

_"Trust the Yus to make a last minute entrance!" yells Danielle Sho, voice rough and harsh from lack of oxygen for however long she was outside. "Better move those legs, Alex!"_

_Your brother doesn't respond at first, until you pull on his arm again, throwing the Nullwave Transmitter with your other hand. Then you both run, sparks from the stunned Phantoms racing up your legs, as Danielle charges up the ramp and drops her shotgun to bang on the shuttle door with both hands._

_And then, somehow, you're there, pulling a heaving Alex in after you, half-stumbling over Danielle as Sarah Elazar reaches over your heads to shut the door, and then -_

_For the first time in who knows how long, since before the sim, you laugh_.

__\----_ _

When you wake, it is to the sound of quiet voices -

"It took Morgan's form to sleep." Igwe. His presence is light at the edge of your telepathic senses, unconcerned. "A good sign, I think?"

"The fact that it's sleeping at all is a good sign." Alex. In contrast to Igwe, he's heavy, weighted down, stiff. "Typhon don't, so that can only be result of the human neurons working."

Igwe hums. "And yet, it's already proven itself distinct from simply copying Morgan."

"My brother was always an early riser," Alex says, voice soft and perhaps a little amused. It sounds like Igwe is about to say something in response, but then another set of footsteps arrive.

"Good morning," says an unfamiliar voice - a woman's, you think. "I hope I'm not late."

That's about when you decide to sit up, rubbing your face with a small groan. When you open your eyes, the first thing that you see is Dayo Igwe with a oversized woven straw hanging down his back. At that point, you deeply consider closing your eyes again. Instead, you glance around, to see Alex - in his TranStar uniform again - and the woman, who has white hair held back with a bandana and a white coat over khaki capris.

"And good morning to you too," she says, giving you a smile. You just grunt, rubbing your eyes one more time. For some reason, the Typhon side of you is aware of her in a way that it doesn't register Igwe and Alex; unlike them, she's potential prey. There's a wariness to her, like an animal hidden by tall grass as a predator walks by, still unsure whether it's going to run or fight. Unlike Alex and Igwe, she hasn't stopped listening to her instincts.

Probably, she's smarter than them.

"Apologies for waking you," Igwe says.

"This is Emmanuella DeSilva," Alex says, gesturing at the woman. "She served as internist aboard Talos I, and now is our sole medical staff."

You nod and sit up a little straighter, though it doesn't do much for you on the cot. You remember her name from the survivor list, and -

_"We have to get Emmanuella DeSilva and Frank Jones out of their escape pod," you say. "It's not like anyone from TranStar is going to pick them up."_

_Dahl gives you a strange look, and you can tell that he's wondering, but he says nothing, instead shifting the shuttle controls to point it in the direction of the single escape pod's signal, drifting out in space._

You shake your head to clear Morgan's memories away, pressing a hand briefly to your temple.

"Headache?" she asks, and you shake your head before managing to find the words to answer.

"Just memories," you say.

Emmanuella's expression doesn't look satisfied with that answer, and Igwe looks curious in a way that doesn't make you entirely comfortable, but it's Alex who speaks up. "We were hoping to talk to you for a while, ask some questions," he says. "Though Danielle emailed us last night regarding your... obstacles with the spoken word. You can take as long as you need."

You nod, but before Alex or Igwe can say anything, Emmanuella says, "Then we'll wait for you in the observation room down the hall. Come in when you're awake enough."

You give her a small smile and a nod, and that does make her look satisfied, as she turns to lead Alex and Igwe in that direction. A few minutes to yourself helps, gives you a chance to get your thoughts together. Truthfully, it doesn't take you all that long to be awake, but you don't particularly want to immediately deal with the kinds of questions Alex and Igwe are going to ask. Questions about the Typhon, about you, that you're not entirely sure you have the answers to yet.

But there's nothing to be done for it except to do it, and so after a moment to push the hair back from your face, you follow them into the small room. There's another complete seal on the door, and inside are five additional consoles, each with some kind of helmet attached by wires. From the way the room is set up, you guess that this is where your simulation was observed from - all of the consoles except the one Alex is seated at have an Operator hovering over them, and it's easy to mark them off. Igwe is at his own station, and Emmanuella is at what must be Sarah Elazar's where the Military Operator hovers.

There's no chair at Mikhaila's console with the Engineering Operator, so you have no choice to sit at Danielle's. There's a mug on the edge of the console that smells of old coffee.

At least Alex looks about as comfortable as you feel, as he holds onto the arms of his chair. That's something. "Let's begin, then," he says.

"Is there something you'd like to be called?" Emmanuella asks. You look at her, blink once, then shrug a little. It isn't something you've thought about.

"Not Morgan," you say, because that's about as far as you've gotten.

"That seems reasonable enough," Igwe says. "We can always return to the matter later."

Alex frowns, but doesn't say anything. He's heavier, against your mind, blotting Igwe and Emmanuella out, weighing the whole room down. Whether it's because of that, because you know from the weight of his thoughts, or because Morgan knows him, is impossible to say. But you know what he's going to ask, even as he starts to form the words.

"No." Your voice (Morgan's voice) surprises you. But the words are there, so you keep going, even if you're borrowing them from Alex himself, from the interrupted question. "There's no way to negotiate with the Typhon. It's not..." And here, where you try to make your own words, they start to fail you. "They don't think. Not like humans. Not like anything."

(If you only have a mind because of Morgan, does that make it any different from being Morgan?)

The three in front of you glance at each other, and then Alex gestures for you to continue. You aren't sure if you want to. You know that you don't want to be in Danielle's chair anymore, set up for her and too small for you, so you stand. Before you really register it, you're pacing back and forth.

(Morgan paced, if he couldn't do something with his hands, something to fidget with. You know that like you know what 'blue' is, something so deep into what they made you that there's no distinction.)

"They just eat," you say, not looking at them as you walk. It's easier, if you aren't trying to focus on the words and the expressions they're making at the same time, if you can focus your gaze on the walls and keep them in your periphery. "The Coral is - "

And there you stop, because you realize what it was that was missing, in the darkness around your cot alone. Alone. The gap in your mind, the one your thoughts flinch away from, the reason you can feel the three humans in the room with you so clearly, it's where the Coral belongs. Where it isn't, where it should be.

You don't remember stopping, but you have, slid to your knees (human knees), with your arms (Typhon arms, twisting Phantom arms) wrapped around yourself. A pained sound escapes you, starting off human and slowly turning into a Typhon noise, half roar, half sob, and half too loud breathing.

You only look up, only come up out of the space between you and the Coral, when you feel (more than you hear, certainly more than you see) Igwe stand and move towards you. He stops just out of your reach, and when you glance his way, his hands are held up, a gesture that Morgan's brain reminds you means that he means no harm.

"Are you alright?" he asks, and some Morgan-shaped part of you wants to say _what does it look like_ , but your mouth wouldn't make the sounds if you tried.

Instead, you just shake your head. The hair that falls lightly around your ears doesn't entirely feel like hair; it might be wisps, like your fingers. "Just go," you manage. "I need to..."

Be alone. (Not be alone.)

They leave. It isn't until you feel the spots of their minds pass out of your awareness, out of the lab, that your grip around yourself relaxes, that you can get a hold of yourself enough that your arms turn back into arms.

 _They want to live inside us_ , whispered the Phantoms in the sim,voices garbled but telepathically clear. _Like a disease._

 _Like a wound_ , you correct, leaning against the side of a desk.

Nothing but silence answers you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Kalaupapa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalaupapa,_Hawaii) is a real place, though liberties were taken with its fate in 2035 as the site of a TranStar facility. Blame the alternate history; it's already shown that TranStar bought a _lot_ of things it probably shouldn't have been able to buy from the US government and other sources. When money is no object, etc, etc...
> 
> As for the exact survivor list and events of both the real Morgan's experiences on Talos I and the simulation, I know what they are. You have to wait and see.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhh chatlogs time to watch AO3 break the shit out of them

It's probably a couple hours before you actually move again. When you stand, it's to the phone on your cot, more to check the time than anything. It's almost noon.

You don't actually know when you woke up, you realize. So much for knowing how long you were leaning against the desk. But the phone is, you discover, loaded with the facility intranet, and already there are two crew-wide notifications waiting to be read.

They're both about you, actually. The first is from Alex, at 7AM, describing your existence as a "preliminary success" and informing the crew that the labs will be open again shortly. The second is from Emmanuella, at 9:25 AM -

_Situation update: Give the labs some space, our new resident started trying to talk to Alex about the Coral and had some kind of meltdown. If you have to go being lookyloos, save it for the afternoon._

There's an option to reply, and a number of the other survivors have. You scroll past most of them, stopping only to read one -

> S.ELAZAR: Any problems?  
>  E.DESILVA: No aggression, but it got Phantomy for a bit. Told Igwe to go, so we left.  
>  H.GRAINGER: is 'Phantomy' your official diagnosis?  
>  E.DESILVA: Very funny.

The words process better, through the screen. You can take your time, feeling them out. Like this, you can even feel the faint hint of a smile at Harley's comment, your facial expressions reacting like 'normal' for a human.

The time is now 12:06 PM. You spend three minutes staring at the cursor in the reply bar, wondering if you even have permission to do that. In the end, you press send and only look at the window long enough to see if the message went through before clicking into something else, and you only stay that long because you're terrified that the name 'Morgan' will appear in front of your response.

> S14: thanks

Then you're scrolling through the rest of the applications on the phone and trying not to think about it. There's a crew list that seems to function the same as Talos I's security terminals - except so much more useful if you can access it from anywhere. Scrolling through it, no one is in the labs except you, a little 'S14' tacked onto the end. There's also a text chat program (with a couple of public chats that go off twice as you're looking), a voice call program, a camera, a music player, and a Zen Coloring application.

You lose twenty minutes to the coloring app, more in amazement at the human perception of color than anything. Typhon can see in color, but it doesn't register as important the way it does for humans.

A lot of things that are important to humans don't matter to Typhon. You should have realized it would go both ways.

The place where the Coral should be aches a little less, as you stare at the phone, the message that popped up to interrupt your idle coloring -

> E.DESILVA: Feeling better?

You don't end up answering. Instead, you click into the messaging app and wind up unloading words into Alex's inbox.

> S14: typhon are connected to the coral. all the time. they don't need complex minds for social interaction like humans do because they're all connected. they don't have a language and don't communicate with each other directly because they're all connected.  
>  S14: i don't know what you did.  
>  S14: i'm alone.

At the bottom of the window, 'A.YU is typing' appears and disappears several times.

> A.YU: It isn't our intention to be cruel. To cause you pain.  
>  S14: that doesn't mean you didn't.  
>  A.YU: I know.

Morgan's memories tell you that that's the closest you're going to get to "I'm sorry." You put the phone face down on the bed and lean back. Once again, you don't know how long you zone out.

_"Do you think they feel pain?"_

_"Probably. They're alive, aren't they?"_

_"Science is still divided on if viruses are alive or not."_

_"The Typhon are a little more complicated than a virus, Alex."_

The words drift back and forth in your head. You wish they'd stop, wish you could quit hearing Morgan every time your own thoughts go quiet.

"Shut up," you say to nobody, and nobody answers.

\----

3:10 PM, the phone sitting next to you goes off again.

> A.INGRAM: Hey, do you eat? Because you should probably eat something.

The message is so strange that for a long moment you just stare at it. Aaron Ingram, the one Talos survivor who was a "volunteer," not crew.

(You shot him yourself. Got the keycode and pulled out your pistol. That was, you realize now, before you started to truly understand, how humans work. Before you started to become human yourself, on a level more than skin deep.)

(Maybe he was guilty. Maybe he wasn't. But you don't think Morgan Yu, at least, had any right to decide.)

> S14: yes?

You're capable of eating, but you don't know if you need to.

> A.INGRAM: I'll bring something by, then.

Why isn't he afraid?

(They must not have told him what you did to the him in the sim.)

You don't answer, and instead you watch as the name Aaron Ingram moves from the crew quarters into the labs. The door opens, and there he is - not at all like you remember, now that his hair is grown out and his skin a little less pale than it was, after living somewhere other than the bare minimum quarters for volunteers aboard the station. There's a pistol strapped to his leg, one of the regulation ones from Talos I, so you suppose that he's at least not completely without a self-preservation instinct.

He also feels different from the other humans you've met so far, and it takes you a moment to figure out why, that the bits that feel like you in his head are, in fact, genuine Typhon mods, like what Morgan had. You wonder if they were put in before or after the escape from Talos.

(Had to be after, right? Morgan was the only person on Talos I with Typhon-based Neuromods, that was the entire point.)

You're wondering what kind of mods they are when he comes over, and you think to doublecheck that you're actually in Morgan's shape. Thankfully, you are, space suit and all, which means that you have hands to take the tray he's carrying.

"Hope you like fish," he says. You shrug; you only have the vaguest memory of non-Talos food, and you've certainly never eaten it. "We mostly have that and tropical fruit."

You nod vaguely and take up the fork to eat some of the fish. Human form means human taste buds, and before you realize you're cramming as much of the fish into your mouth as you can.

"Hey, careful, you're going to - "

You choke, because apparently your human body has a reflex for that even though you don't actually need to breathe. Ingram claps you on the back, hard, which you're vaguely aware is supposed to help, but doesn't really do anything much in this case.

"Thanks," you half-wheeze. "It's good."

"Dunno if I noticed," he says, and there's humor in his voice, you can hear it even if you don't know how you could imitate it. "I'll be sure to tell Franz. And I won't even tell him you choked on it."

When you top leaning forward so that you can actually see his face, he's smiling. You smile back, and mutter, "Just don't tell Alex."

It's apparently all you need to say to get out of conversation for the next several minutes. Ingram sits down on the far end of your bed with a groan. "Ugh, I don't even want to imagine it. He's barely come out of the labs in _months_ and he was a pain even before that. Can't decide if he wants to be apologetic for everything or in charge. At least when Morgan was around..."

He trails off for a minute, and you pause in picking up the papaya that's also on the tray to look at him. "Well, anyway. Maybe he'll start being a normal person again, as much as that's possible for Alex."

You shake your head. "S'not," you say around a bite of fruit.

"Guess you'd know." Ingram twiddles his fingers, looking out across the lab instead of at you. A few feet away, a dropped pen lifts and starts to turn over, end-over-end. "Hey, look, I..."

You look up from the papaya to him. (You had been wondering if the seeds were edible.)

"I just wanted to say that you're not the only person here who's gotten treated as a number instead of a name," he says. "Just in case anyone decided to be a shithead about it."

You stare at him for a moment, trying to find the words for the concepts, the question that rattles around in your brain. When you can't get your mouth to form them, you grab the phone off the other side of the bed. Typing it takes too long; you give the internal systems of the device a mental touch and the words appear.

> S14: Why?  
>  S14: Shouldn't you be more suspicious of me?  
>  S14: I'm still a Typhon. You don't know how human I am, even if I look like one.

Like Morgan. Like the man who spared him, saved him, if the simulation was like the real thing.

Ingram pulls out a phone that's a little newer-looking than yours to read the messages, from the pocket on the opposite side from the pistol. He's quiet for a moment. "Nobody's told you, huh? Morgan put the whole thing to a vote before he and Alex started working on this whole thing. Wasn't going to let it go forward if we didn't all agree to it."

Your eyes go wide and you tilt your head a little, surprised, seeking clarification.

> S14: Everyone?

"Yeah. Unamimous or nothing. 'Course, half of them would have voted for whatever Morgan thought was best anyway, but he always tried to make sure that everyone got considered, even if it meant that he just let Danielle yell at Alex in front of everyone."

That sounds right. Not about Morgan - there's still so much you don't know that every bit of information about him, the _real_ Morgan and not the one that lives in the paths of your neurons - but the image of Danielle Sho just telling Alex off in front of the whole group of survivors.

"Oh," you say out loud. It doesn't entirely sound like Morgan's voice.

"Yeah." Across the room, the pen drops back onto the floor. Ingram doesn't seem to notice. "There's lots of people that are nervous about you, but they all agreed to have you here. Which, hey, the only other person who can say that is _maybe_ Chief Elazar. You'll be fine."

He's trying to be reassuring, you realize. It might even be working, because you smile weakly.

> S14: Thanks.

And you make his phone beep for good measure, which gets a weak chuckle. "Maybe don't possess other people's phones in front of some of the others, though, might freak them out. And with this group, being freaked out usually means someone's reaching for a gun."

> S14: Oh. Right. That makes sense.

"It's no big deal," he says, dropping his phone onto the bed. "Maybe it's because I can do shit like this - " The pen from across the room snaps up and into his outstretched hand. " - but I don't really mind. Most of the others swore off getting any more mods, though, between finding out what's in them and what happened to Morgan."

You debate asking him why he didn't, but before you can even pull your phone out for the question, it buzzes.

> S.ELAZAR: Coming in in ten.  
>  S.ELAZAR: Still need to know what you can do out of the sim, so moping time is over.  
>  S14: Got it, Chief.

Honestly, you're a little relieved. Tests of your abilities, at least, won't raise any more questions than you already have. (You hope.)

> S.ELAZAR: Glad to hear it.  
>  S.ELAZAR: Tell Ingram he can stick around if he wants.

You don't tell him so much as show him your screen, and he chuckles and shakes his head. "No, gotta get back to the kitchen. I'm on dish duty today, Franz'll have my head."

You nod, and take the last chunk of your papaya before handing him the tray. "Thanks," you say again.

"Later," he says, and then you're feeling more than watching as he leaves, trying to settle yourself for whatever comes next.

\----

Sarah shows up as promised, as you're still licking the last of the papaya juice from your fingers. There's also a woman you vaguely recognize, carrying a clipboard, and one of the other Security officers from the Cargo Bay, whose name you're vaguely sure is Austin.

You turn out to be right when the woman comes up to introduce herself. "Lisa Larson," she says. "I used to observe Morgan's tests." She can't possibly miss the way you lean away from her a little at that, and you're glad that your sticky fingers give you an excuse to not shake her hand (even though you're pretty sure you could get rid of the last of the juice by shifting to Phantom and back). "This is Security Officer Austin Cool."

He gives you a brief wave at his introduction, and you return it a little awkwardly. Sarah says, "Go clean up and meet us at the testing chamber down the hall."

You can do that. The flow of water over your hands is a more comforting reminder of Talos than the idea of someone watching you with a clipboard.

Luckily, the testing chamber isn't much at all like the ones on board the station. There's no glass walls and pristine testing environments, but instead a collection of random objects, a couple of chairs, and a single science Operator that floats past Lisa with a "my apologies, Dr. Larson."

"Let's starting with mimicking something other than Morgan," Sarah says, after you take a seat on the edge of the exam table filling the room. "And then we'll go from there."

You shrug and, since it's the first thing that comes to mind, turn into a mug on the table.

As a mug, your senses are much more sharply limited, but you hear a sharp intake of breath and a male voice, "...look like you've seen a ghost, Lisa."

"Did it have to be a mug?" another voice says, quietly enough that you almost don't catch it.

"That's enough," says a commanding voice, closer to you than the others, and you let go, turning back into Morgan. As your thoughts clear, the implications of the last few minutes catch up, and you give the shaken-looking Lisa a glance.

"Sorry," you mutter.

"It's fine," she says, dismissively, too-fast, but the space around her mind is too-bright, still carrying the edge of panic. Now that you look, there's a sort of scar over her thoughts. Your first thought is neuromod removal, but then you realize where you've seen her face before.

Charging at you, under the mental control of a Telepath, the first one you encountered, and you weren't able to do anything. Didn't know enough.

You look away, under the pretense of looking back at Sarah. There's no way you could keep eye contact after that.

After that, it's mostly running down the list of the abilities you had in the simulation - they were real neuromods, or something close to them, so in addition to the Phantom and mimic abilities, you still have the electroshock and technopathic mods. You set the Science Operator to doing slow orbits around you before you release it from conscious control, and it keeps going for a couple minutes before the effect wears off and it emits a single confused whirr.

"Longer than Morgan could do it," Lisa observes, scribbling. She pauses and looks up at where you're seated. "Does the same thing apply to mimicking?"

You think for a minute, then shrug. "Probably."

Lisa hums thoughtfully. Austin - who up to this point has been mostly silent - suddenly sits upright. "Hey," he says. "You did a mug earlier, right?"

You tilt your head at him.

"There's not any TranStar mugs in here," he says.

Lisa catches onto his meaning faster than you, and yanks her clipboard towards her chest excitedly. "Does that mean it can mimic things it can't see?" she says. "Because that's a behavior we've never seen in - "

Sarah clears her throat. You're not entirely sure what that means, but it serves to make Lisa go quiet for a minute.

"Can you do something that isn't in here?" Austin asks. "Something complicated."

You nod, and, for lack of anything else that springs immediately to mind, turn into January. As an Operator with cameras and microphones built in, your senses are much better than as a mug. You float in the space over the exam table while Sarah starts a stopwatch.

"Larson, what's Morgan's record?" she asks.

"On something as complicated as an Operator? Six and a half minutes," Lisa answers, not even looking up from where she's scribbling notes. "On simpler objects, it's more like eight."

"Let's try for ten, then," Sarah says. "Any longer than that and we'll be here all night. We have no idea what kind of stamina we're looking at here."

Lisa nods and looks back at her clipboard. "Did he really paint the casing black and red...?" she mutters, mostly to herself, but you hear it anyway.

"Affirmative," you say, in January's robotic, synthesized voice, which is barely different from your own but _feels_ very different. Lisa jumps a little, Austin covers his mouth with one hand, and Sarah looks like she's trying very hard to not look amused.

"Of course," Lisa says, with a sigh. "And I shouldn't be surprised that you have his sense of humor, either."

"Kind of spooky having Morgan's Phantom double turn into his Operator, though," Austin says. Bored and getting the feeling that they're not addressing you specifically, you float around the room idly. An Operator's kind of weightlessness is very different from microgravity, and far easier to control.

You continue to float for the duration of the timer, until it beeps and you turn back into Morgan in a corner of the room. Lisa hums thoughtfully. "Tired at all?"

You shrug, then hold up one hand in a pinching gesture, a little bit of space between your fingers.

Lisa nods. "Psi pool probably larger than a human's, considering... One more question and we're done. You can turn in and out of Morgan's form without going back to your natural one, when mimicking other objects - can you do that with anything?"

You shrug, and then, because trying to express your thoughts in spoken word just isn't going to work, put a mental touch on the phone you left on the exam bed.

> S14: Morgan's form feels natural. I don't have to think about it the way I do mimicking something else.  
>  S14: Probably because of the sim, since those are the only memories that are really 'mine' instead of his. Or it might just be the neural impressions.  
>  S14: But it feels more like 'me' than being a Phantom does.

You send the messages to all three of them, and watch as all three pull their buzzing phones out of various pockets. It's the most you've ever 'said' at once, and you see Sarah frown at the screen before she puts her phone back in her pocket.

"We can test that tomorrow, if you want," she says to Lisa. "That's enough for today."

Lisa sighs, but puts up her pen. "Tomorrow, then. Alex and Igwe are going to want to pick all this apart anyway."

It's your turn to sigh, then. You don't like to be back to being someone's pet science project, but on the other hand, it's all you have to do other than what's on your phone and sleeping.

"Later," Austin says as they leave. You hear Sarah mutter something to him about still being on duty, and then the lab doors close behind them, leaving you alone again.

\----

There may only be thirty people in the facility (counting you), but, as you discover sitting in the chat application, that doesn't make it quiet.

Doubly so when they have something new and interesting to discuss, namely, you.

> C.POPINGA: Okay, so who's actually talked to it? What's it like?  
>  A.COOL: Pretty quiet. I know Danielle said it doesn't like to talk, but if it actually *said* five words the whole time I'd be surprised.  
>  A.COOL: Starting texting at the end when it actually had something to say, by just skipping to possessing the phone.  
>  A.COOL: Otherwise, it was honestly pretty normal.  
>  I.LAKE: I'm trying to imagine "Morgan" and "not talking" and it's not working.  
>  D.BRANCH: Right? He's always got something to say about everything.

"D.IGWE is typing" appears at the bottom of the screen, and goes on for quite a while before the message appears.

> D.IGWE: It was quite explicit about drawing a line between itself and Morgan. In fact, I would say that that's the only thing about its identity that it is certain about. The conflict between Morgan's human neural patterns and the natural Typhon cognition appears to have caused it some distress. That is why our meeting this morning ended early.  
>  I.STEWART: tldr don't call it Morgan.  
>  I.LAKE: Doesn't sound that hard. Identical twins, right?  
>  C.POPINGA: probably more alike than that. Twins don't share a brain, whatever the movies say.  
>  G.SNOW: Don't forget that it isn't human. Even if it looks like Morgan, we all know it doesn't think like him.  
>  A.COOL: I don't know about that. Sounded a lot like him when it started talking science.  
>  A.COOL: And when it sassed Lisa.  
>  C.POPINGA: omg  
>  D.BRANCH: Sounds like we've got another Yu on our hands. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad one.  
>  L.LARSON: I see, I get out of talking to Alex and Austin's already out here ruining my reputation.  
>  L.LARSON: Uncool, Cool.  
>  A.COOL: I'm sure you're just the first of many, Lisa. Someone had to be.  
>  I.STEWART: we appreciate your sacrifice for the cause, lisa.  
>  D.IGWE: And what did Alex have to say of your results?

You pause, watching the scrolling messages feed, holding a breath you don't need anyway. What _did_ Alex say?

(Part of you still trusts him about as far as he can throw you.)

> L.LARSON: I mean, he was Alex about it. Super interested in the fact that 14 has a higher psychic stamina than Morgan, super interested in the fact that it could mimic things that weren't right in front of it, weirdly interested in the messages it sent?  
>  L.LARSON: Like, he wanted a verbatim copy, so I wound up just showing him my phone.  
>  D.IGWE: It's most likely that he wanted to run a comparison to Morgan's diction.  
>  L.LARSON: Maybe.  
>  I.STEWART: hate to say it, but having Morgan in charge made him way more stable.  
>  I.STEWART: not surprising he's gotten obsessed with his projects again. maybe we should send The Sho to knock sense into him again.  
>  I.LAKE: If he starts trying to turn the Phantom into Morgan Tu, that'll be a problem.

Damn right it will be, you can't help but think to yourself. You make a note to yourself to watch out for that, even if you're not sure what exactly Alex could do to try and shape you into another Morgan.

(Three days in the labs is reasonable, as far as making sure that you aren't going to kill everyone. Any more than that, and you're going to have words. Even if those words come out of a text to speech at maximum volume.)

The words 'M.ILYUSHIN is typing' appear at the bottom of the screen, and the chat goes silent again, waiting. When the words appear, there's far fewer of them than Igwe's long message, even though the silence seemed to stretch on the same amount of time.

> M.ILYUSHIN: You are aware that he can read this as easily as any of us, yes?  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: As can Subject 14. Chief Sho left him a phone.  
>  I.STEWART: shit, seriously?  
>  G.SNOW: So much for alien-proofing the chat.  
>  A.COOL: Shit. Probably shouldn't be calling him "it" either.  
>  A.COOL: Though is "he" right? Did anyone ask? I know we're talking about somebody who's half Morgan, but he also doesn't want to be Morgan.  
>  I.LAKE: Austin, please don't turn this into another 'do Typhon have gender' saga.

You touch your mind to the phone in your hand, and the words appear instantly. You send them before you can think better of it.

> S14: "He" is fine.  
>  C.POPINGA: !!!  
>  I.STEWART: that was quick.  
>  A.COOL: I told you, he types with his brain.  
>  D.IGWE: Hello, Subject 14. I hope that none of what has been said was in any way offensive, and I am glad to see that you are feeling well enough to come mingle with the rest of the crew, for some definition of mingle.  
>  S14: It's about what I expected people to say. I'm not bothered.

And you're not, really. No one's said anything particularly awful, even if some of them are clearly not fans of you. You'd be more surprised if they were all on board with this, regardless of what Ingram said about it being a unanimous decision. It's comforting to see disagreement of some sort.

> I.LAKE: Have you picked a name yet? "Subject 14" is kind of...  
>  S14: Not yet.  
>  A.COOL: Don't rush him, Indy, this stuff takes time.  
>  I.LAKE: Yeah, I was just wondering. Take however long you need.  
>  S14: I haven't had much time to think about it. I'm still working on processing everything.  
>  S14: After all, in a way, I was born yesterday.  
>  C.POPINGA: did you just  
>  I.LAKE: That was bad.  
>  C.HAWTHORNE: Did I really just get off equipment check to see the Phantom in the chat making jokes?  
>  C.HAWTHORNE: On that note, @Security we need someone to keep eyes on that Typhon Gate in the gardens again. Looks like a Technopath came by and tried to mess with it.  
>  A.COOL: Get the Chief a report and I'll be up in ten. Five if there's still coffee in the kitchen.  
>  C.HAWTHORNE: Thanks. Sorry, I know you hate all-nighters.  
>  A.COOL: Won't even be the most interesting Typhon I see today if it's still hanging around. Later, guys. Good luck with mingling, 14.  
>  S14: Thanks.  
>  S14: Do the Typhon Gates fail often?  
>  C.HAWTHORNE: No, they're pretty effective. We mostly fixed the problems with voltaics shorting them out, so it's just Technopaths we have to worry about, and those don't come out here into the middle of nowhere that often.  
>  C.HAWTHORNE: This is only the fourth in the six months since we set the gates up.  
>  S14: That's not bad.  
>  I.LAKE: Benefits of our enforced Hawaiian vacation. Not enough people on the island to have a big Typhon population, and they hate crossing the water.  
>  I.STEWART: yeah, not enough food here for them.  
>  I.LAKE: We see two or three Mimics a week testing the doors, maybe a Phantom or a Weaver.  
>  I.LAKE: Everyone in Security hates chasing the Weavers through the jungle trying to kill them.  
>  D.IGWE: They are also the only Typhon that regularly crosses the water. Otherwise, we largely need only contend with the Typhon on supply-gathering trips to the former cities.  
>  S14: Makes sense. I guess you can't be too paranoid, though.  
>  C.HAWTHORNE: Nope.  
>  L.LARSON: For reference, you're the only live specimen in the facility. That's one of the rules Morgan gave Alex before letting him do anything.  
>  L.LARSON: One Phantom at a time and nothing else. That way even if it slips containment, worst it can do is kill people.  
>  I.STEWART: and security can take care of one Phantom pretty fast.  
>  I.STEWART: not that i think you're going to start killing people or anything.

You frown at the screen and make a point of not saying anything to that. If the backhanded threat makes them feel better, you're not going to remind them that you're a little more than a garden-variety Phantom.

(You're still not entirely sure that you won't have to fight your way out at some point. You're just accepting the realization that you don't want to.)

> L.LARSON: He also has to put any new projects to a universal vote and make all the records publicly available.  
>  S14: That's also an appropriate level of paranoid. Especially considering, you know, Morgan.  
>  D.BRANCH: Are we talking about Morgan being paranoid?  
>  I.LAKE: You're one to talk, David.  
>  D.BRANCH: He should have put more restrictions on the alien mods, that's all I'm saying, instead of letting anyone who wants them have them.  
>  L.LARSON: He didn't. He capped it at two, that's where the turrets start counting them. And no one outside this facility knows about them.  
>  D.BRANCH: Except TranStar. And KASMA. And anyone else who had spies hiding out on Talos or Pytheas.  
>  C.POPINGA: not this again  
>  C.HAWTHORNE: Even if KASMA has plans for the normal neuromods, they don't have any of the data from Psychotronics. Only person who has that is Chief Sho.  
>  D.BRANCH: I'm just saying. We can't know for sure that you guys are the only ones with alien powers.  
>  D.BRANCH: Also, the two powers limit doesn't apply to the Phantom over there, does it?  
>  L.LARSON: He's still less extensively modded than Morgan.  
>  L.LARSON: That's what we were testing today.  
>  D.IGWE: There are measures in place to monitor the use of neuromods within the sim, David. Subject 14's full list of neural modifications is on the record.  
>  D.BRANCH: Unless it got something from Morgan's brain that we don't know about. HE'S never given anyone his full list of mods, has he?  
>  S.ELAZAR: Branch. Enough.

You breathe a sigh of relief at the screen. That was a minefield you had no idea how to wade through. Having Sarah cut it off is probably for the better.

(Still. You make a mental note to keep an eye on David Branch.)

> D.BRANCH: Sorry, Chief.  
>  D.IGWE: The simulation includes a beginning phase from Morgan's own testing for exactly that reason, David. It is to ensure that the subjects react in a manner consistent with an unmodified human.

Huh. You'd never considered that - the simulation test had quickly faded into the back of your mind in the face of the Typhon outbreak.

> D.IGWE: Several of the early subjects failed on precisely those grounds, if you recall.

And now you feel a shiver going up your spine, and you suddenly don't want to be Morgan-shaped. You think of the folder still on your bed, and resist the call of dark curiosity about exactly how many test subjects before you never made it to the outbreak at all.

Fortunately, no one on the other side of the screen can see that you're currently an unsettled black blob instead of something human-looking. Ah, the wonders of technology.

> S14: The neural impression I have from Morgan isn't complete. I don't have access to most of his memories, or much of his knowledge of human culture.  
>  S14: I have a general idea of his experiences in the Talos I outbreak, a few other flashes, his emotional response and a decent portion of his language skills.  
>  S14: And his sense of humor, if what people keep saying is to be believed.  
>  S14: That doesn't make me him. I have no more idea what neuromods he used in Talos than anyone else.  
>  S14: Fuck, I sound like January.  
>  D.IGWE: January was programmed with Morgan's own speech patterns, so it stands to reason that you would all be similar.  
>  S14: Not helping.  
>  D.IGWE: Apologies.  
>  S14: Point is, whether or not you decided to trust Morgan is up to you, but that shouldn't change now that I'm here.  
>  S14: I'm an echo of him, at best.  
>  D.BRANCH: I get it, September. You're not the guy who saved all our asses, you're his weird alien double.  
>  D.BRANCH: Fine. Means I don't have to trust you.  
>  I.LAKE: David, /chill/.  
>  S14: It's fine. He doesn't have to trust me, or even like me.

It's also pretty damn funny that he called you September, since Morgan's first Operator was October. Some things can't help but come full circle, you suppose. You wind up taking Morgan's form again, because Phantoms can't laugh.

But you aren't the wishes of Morgan Yu of September 12th, 2035. You don't even know when the neural image you're based off was taken. You aren't sure that you're the wishes of Morgan Yu at all.

> S14: Just don't call me September again.


	3. Chapter 3

_When you dream, it's always in the same motifs. Test, erase, repeat. You wake up, and you wake up, and you wake up, without ever going to sleep._

_Sometimes the voice you hear is Alex. Sometimes it's January. Sometimes it's Dahl, calling you what you are, a rat trapped in a maze._

_You wake up. The voice is a woman's, unfamiliar._

_"Good morning, Dr. Yu."_

\----

You back off from the conversation after that, and wind up dozing with the phone still in one hand. When you wake the next morning, the chat has moved on, and there's a private message waiting for you. Two of them, actually, but you don't feel as bad as you perhaps should for making Alex wait.

> D.SHO: Don't get too twisted up about David, he's been like that ever since Talos.  
>  D.SHO: All the Telepath survivors are a little weird.  
>  D.SHO: I'll be by this afternoon to mess with the Operators if you want something to do.  
>  D.SHO: Just don't wake me up before noon by replying to this, or I swear, we'll need to go looking for Subject 15.

You snicker to yourself, and reach deeper into the phone's programming so that it automatically sends a "See you later" at exactly 12:01 PM.

(Okay, so maybe you just don't feel bad for what you do, in general. Typhon certainly don't feel guilt, and Morgan... Well, jury's still deliberating over that one.)

Then, grudgingly, it's over to the messages from Alex. Unlike the ones from Danielle, which are from some time late last night, these are less than an hour old.

> A.YU: Glad to see that you've gotten your feet under you.  
>  A.YU: Might we resume our meeting this morning?  
>  A.YU: Only if you're feeling up to it, of course.

You consider long and hard if you're up to it. A good portion of you still wants to tell him exactly where he can fuck off to, but after a moment you sigh.

> S14: Only if you bring breakfast.  
>  A.YU: Deal.  
>  A.YU: See you in half an hour.

Well, at least that gives you some time to get things in order. You make use of the sink in the lab bathroom for the first time, and freeze for a long moment when you see your face in the mirror.

Or Morgan's face, rather. After the mirrors of Talos - all of them fogged up or broken screens - it's a shock to see yourself so clearly. Or him. Whichever. You let yourself hunch over the sink for a long moment before splashing cold water into your face, steadying your breathing.

(It's not a _real_ mental breakdown if you don't break the mirror, right?)

When you think you can face it again, Morgan is still in the mirror, looking less unsettled than you feel. You move the muscles of your face around, not so much 'making faces' as getting used to the fact that they're attached to you like the others are. Hands and feet, arms and legs and torso, you can handle all those just fine.

You're still in the space suit. You wonder if the impact would be less if you had anything else to wear, and try shifting into the sleep clothes you woke up in that first morning in the sim. It's both better and worse, because while it's not the Talos uniform, it's somehow even more _Morgan_.

You've seen plenty of people here in other clothes. Might be time to get some of those for yourself. For now, you let the familiar space suit cover your skin again, and continue your staredown with the Morgan in the mirror.

The thought of looking like anyone _else_ makes a sick roil in your currently-too-human stomach. So Morgan it is. You push your hair out of your face, a little uselessly, and leave the bathroom.

This time, you take advantage of being the first to arrive to claim Alex's more comfortable chair in the observation room. You're spinning in it idly when the others arrive, bringing with them the sound of the door opening and the smell of food.

Alex is actually carrying the tray this time, which is a surprise, with Emmanuella and Igwe flanking behind him again. You can recognize Igwe, at least, without looking. Where Alex's mind is heavy, a pressure on the place where Coral would exist if there was any, Igwe's mind is like wind blowing through a gap, a light sort of noise that fades into the background.

Other than the coffee, you have to dig to recognize the smell of cinnamon oatmeal, the bright red of fresh strawberries, foods you've never seen before that Morgan knows perfectly well -

_"Okay, we all need to think of something else or we're going to go crazy. What's the Earthside food you missed the most?"_

Your hands don't shake as you take the tray from Alex and balance it over the armrests, but it's a near thing. For a moment, all you can hear is Morgan's memories.

_"And don't bother answering, Alex, we both know it's that cinnamon swirl cheesecake from that bakery by corporate."_

You take up the spoon and put a bite of the oatmeal in your mouth without tasting it at first, to give yourself a moment to recover from the memories of the shuttle, of a handful of survivors all sitting around and forgetting their feuds for a moment. Just glad to be alive.

(You glance at Igwe as he sits, your head full of his description of fresh, hand-picked strawberries. Is that why they have them here?)

"It's not much," Alex says. He seems to have opted to remain standing, leaning against Mikhaila's console, instead of trying to take one of the other seats. "We're beginning to get low on supplies."

You nod vaguely, and bite on the spoon in order to give yourself something tactile to focus on for a moment. Then it's a slug of coffee and finally your head starts to clear, the memory fading back and away.

(Danielle, talking about how she was going to cram an entire plate of curly fries into her mouth at once. Mikhaila, emphatically stating that she didn't care what she ate when they got back to Earth, so long as she never had to touch another eel. Alex magnanimously offering to take everyone out for cheesecake, and Ingram awkwardly asking if that included him.)

"It's good," you say, and then you go back to putting oatmeal in your mouth, phone set on the edge of the tray to do your talking for you.

There's a pause, as the others glance at the phone, lit by the slight violet distortion of a technopathically possessed object, but then Igwe says, "Yesterday, you were talking about Typhon as creatures that don't think in the same way as humans. Can you elaborate?"

You tap the phone with the end of your spoon as you reach for another sip of coffee.

> S14: Sure.  
>  S14: I don't know how much sense the explanation is going to make, though.  
>  S14: The thing is that Typhon don't have an individual sense of self the way humans do. They don't have identities or a desire to self-express.  
>  S14: It's not a complete hive-mind, but it's close to that. They're all connected through the Coral, that's how they recognize each other, how they think.  
>  S14: Coral-as-neurons isn't wrong, but it's a decentralized nervous system. There isn't a brain or central consciousness.

You start spooning up oatmeal again as Alex says, "No central consciousness? Not even the Apex?"

> S14: No. They don't need it.  
>  S14: Thinking of the different types of Typhon as species doesn't work because they're all part of the same system. Speciating them makes them too separate.  
>  S14: It's more like how individual hive insects have anatomy that's different for specialized jobs.

The comparison flows into your thoughts and back out, like something you've always known. It's a conversation, you're realizing, that would be impossible to have without at least some human context.

"Realizing that you were disconnected from the Coral seemed to cause you a great deal of distress," Igwe says.

And that, that you don't have words for.

> S14: It's not supposed to happen. There's latent consciousness everywhere; that forms the core of the Coral, so Typhon that aren't in the direct presence of it can still connect to that and then back into the Coral.  
>  S14: For me there's nothing. Or at least nothing I can hear.  
>  S14: It's like death.

There's silence for a moment after that. " _Will_ it kill you?" Emmanuella asks. She leans forward a little in her chair, all her attention on you.

> S14: Being disconnected? I don't think so.  
>  S14: It's not painful, just empty. Like reaching for something that isn't there.

"Like a phantom limb?"

> S14: Something like that, I think.

Emmanuella nods, and leans back again. "We'll have to keep an eye on it," she says. "I'm responsible for the health of everyone here, and that includes you."

You break eye contact and look down at the inside of your coffee mug.

> S14: Thanks.

You're pretty sure that she likely doesn't know enough about Typhon biology for that to be meaningful - you're not sure that _you_ know enough about your biology now to be meaningful, and that's with most of Morgan's knowledge on the subject sitting in your head - but it's a nice thought. Even if it does mean that there's probably a physical examination in your near future.

Alex sighs. "We knew that there was a good chance that there would be no possibility of negotiation or even communication with the Typhon. I suppose it's a miracle that we were able to get this far."

"Do not blame yourself," Igwe says. "It is no one's fault." He turns his chair away from Alex and back to you. "And it is obviously not practical to attempt to repeat our success with you to change the nature of the Typhon, even if it were possible."

> S14: Right. Failure rate's too high, and that's disregarding the fact that I can't connect to the Coral.

You're nodding, even as you follow through on the implications. There won't be any more simulations, any more experiments, not like this, not like you. You are both the first and last of your kind.

Oatmeal mostly gone, you bite into a strawberry. The flavor gives you something to focus on besides your reality.

Alex chuckles, though it's a little melancholy and resigned. "And imagine, if we kept using Morgan's neural impressions. I think there's more than enough versions of my brother in the world already."

That's also true. The world has had more than enough of Morgan Yu. Even Morgan himself thought so at one point, considering January.

You clear your throat and set their phones to buzz at the same time.

> S14: Why did you go to the trouble of using a Phantom implanted with mimic connectomes, before you ever added Morgan's neural imprint?

"A mimic isn't complex enough," Igwe says. "We thought that a Phantom would respond to human connectomes, given that they were once human themselves and have demonstrated some retention of human impulses."

You nod. You're familiar with the way Phantoms talk, words that are repeated over and over again. You wonder if normal humans experience the murmurings the same way you did in the sim, half-telepathic meanings embedded in words that were too difficult to understand by ear.

"Without the mimic connectomes, the first few subjects failed to maintain a consistent image of themselves as Morgan in the simulation," Alex says. "Usually they would revert upon catching sight of themselves in the mirror, or upon reaching the human survivors in the Cargo Bay or Crew Quarters."

That explains the lack of reflective surfaces, then. Probably all programmed out to keep you from sighting a Phantom in the mirror by accident and losing your mind.

You debate with yourself before sending the question on your mind.

> S14: How much of it was what really happened?

"Most of it," Alex says. "A few things were modified, but mostly for the sake of not breaking immersion. That's why the simulated versions of the crew don't react to things such as the use of Typhon powers or turrets targeting you."

"Morgan had quite a time with that last one when he arrived in the Cargo Bay," Igwe says. "He and Chief Elazar had quite the stand-off at first."

You remember the first time you came back to Morgan's office and the turret in the entryway started shooting at you, and it must show on your face, because Emmanuella quickly says, "The turrets here are already programmed to ignore you."

That's only slightly comforting.

> S14: Why not just do that with the simulated turrets, then?

"Problem-solving test," Alex says. "Testing empathy was not the only goal of the simulation, just the most important one. We also tested for whether or not your solutions were identical to Morgan's."

_Huh._

> S14: And were my solutions like Morgan's?

"No," Alex says. "That's one of the reasons you were a promising prospect."

You raise your eyebrows and tilt your head at him.

"Because you demonstrated creativity akin to a human's," he continues. "Rather than simply imitating Morgan, you had something _original_ \- " And there's that tone in his voice, the fanatical devotion Alex Yu has to his projects no more comfortable for being its subject. " - which we hoped was an indicator that you could be successfully be removed from the sim environment without psychologically reverting."

_And attempting to eat everyone's faces,_ he doesn't say, but you hear it loud and clear. Alex's mind is still heavy, pulling attention to him like gravity, and for a moment you can't be sure you only heard the thought as an implication.

But no, you remind yourself. Misplaced instincts reaching through Coral that isn't there won't give you any extra insight into the minds of humans who aren't connected to it anyway. Then you have to stop thinking about it, to pull your mind away from the still raw wound of that connection. Some instinct says that you can't let that show - especially around Alex.

(You can't trust anything he might tell you about Morgan, either. Not when even Morgan couldn't trust what Alex said about Morgan.)

> S14: And a subject that demonstrated more humanlike reactions was more promising than one that didn't. You weren't just measuring empathy, you were measuring all the metrics of humanity you had available.

"Empathy was our most important consideration," Alex says, which isn't a denial, so you're probably right. It makes too much sense, when you look at it as a test of the humanity of your responses as a whole.

"You also engaged in tactical solutions that demonstrated the ability for forethought," Igwe says. "And perhaps most tellingly, you demonstrated the potential for _growth_. You didn't begin with a high degree of empathy or creativity, but you developed it throughout the course of the simulation, organically. None of the previous subjects displayed such a potential for development."

It would be flattering if it weren't for the fact that they're still talking about you as a pet project. Emmanuella has leaned far back in her chair, not looking at either Alex or Igwe. You look down into your mug, now empty of coffee.

> S14: Sorry it was all for nothing.

"Nonsense," Alex says. "Even if our primary goal isn't something we can make into a reality, there's still an incredible amount you can teach us."

Somehow, you thought that would be his answer.

"And that makes it my turn," Emmanuella says, leaning forward again with a smile. "I hope you're prepared for a physical."

You groan, but put the tray aside, ignoring the way Alex chuckle at your reaction.

> S14: Right. Sure. Let's get it over with.

\----

The physical takes an obnoxiously long time - Emmanuella not only runs the regular tests, but takes a saliva sample and a blood draw. Then she has you turn into your Phantom form and back, and when you do that, the red of human blood turns black and stays that way.

Then she has you try to intentionally assume the partially-Phantom form you took the day before, with twisting tendril arms and human everything else, and takes your pulse and a few other measurements that way, too.

When you're all done, she says, "Most of these are nearly identical to Morgan's immediately after Talos - I don't know why we bothered."

"Because what changes there are are important," Alex says, his eyes on the black vial of your blood. "Perhaps more now than ever."

Well, that doesn't feel ominous at all, even with Emmanuella clearly still wearing her bedside manner smile.

(You're starting to understand how Morgan could spawn the idea for January and the other Operators so easily, so many times, if his experience within his own mind was anything like yours. It's almost like there's a second part of you that exists mostly for dark observations and snarky comments in his voice.)

They leave about the time your phone goes off where you left it on the console, and you know what the message is going to be as soon as you see the clock reading 12:03.

> D.SHO: You asshole.  
>  D.SHO: I'm putting that in your official data record. That you're an asshole.  
>  D.SHO: Lisa was right, you did get Morgan's sense of humor. That's the worst part of him, you know.  
>  S14: I wish I could say I was sorry, but I've dealt with Alex /and/ doctors today.  
>  D.SHO: Fine, I'll let it pass this once. :v  
>  D.SHO: I'll be there after lunch. Want something while I'm down here?  
>  S14: Sure. Thanks.

You kill the time waiting continuing the coloring app, some instinct driving you to color a pattern of swirls in familiar shades of golden orange. Then purple-black, and Morgan's favorite red appears under your fingers -

You stop, and wind up staring at those three colors for a long time before you put the phone in your suit pocket. They stay swirling in your mind anyway.

Art is supposed to be a way to express that you don't have words for, right? Maybe you'll become an artist. The idea is so ridiculous that you're chuckling when you feel Danielle's mind at the edge of your awareness.

"Here," she says, walking right up and putting a plate in your hands. There's a bunch of bright orange fries and a banana balanced on the edge. "And for the record, normal people peel bananas before eating them. Seeing you just stuff them in your face in the sim was almost as terrifying as the Typhon."

You laugh, but concede to peeling the banana as she pulls a toolbox out from under her console and sets up with the first Operator on the floor. She also sets her phone within easy view - it's a little thing, but after watching everyone else dig for theirs over the last two days, it's nice.

> S14: I don't think "normal" is something I'm going to manage any time soon.

"Okay, fair enough," she says. "Don't eat lemons like that, either. Earthside lemons are _way_ sourer than the ones on Talos."

You shrug, and pick up a couple of the fries to put in your mouth. They're unexpectedly kind of sweet.

> S14: I don't remember having much of a sense of taste in the sim anyway.  
>  S14: Wasn't really critical to the experience, I guess.

"Are you implying that the great Alex Yu cut corners on the taste of simulated lemons?" she asks, waving a screwdriver in your direction before taking it to the casing of the powered-off Operator. "Because, honestly, you're probably right."

> S14: No one tell the investors.

Danielle laughs, then. "God. Good to know you're not taking his shit, either."

You feel your smile fade away, just a bit.

> S14: What he did, trapping Morgan in the sim... It's unforgivable.

"And fucked up," she agrees, also growing a little more sober. She doesn't make eye contact with you as she works, peeling the Operator's hull off and then pulling a chip case out of the box under her console. "I don't know how Morgan could stand to work with him, after that. Even with his actual memories of it gone. Brotherly love, I guess."

> S14: Considering that their father called a mercenary assassin on them when shit hit the fan, I don't think either of them probably has a good idea of what "love" is.

"What's that make you, then?"

> S14: Fucked up, probably.  
>  S14: But I don't have a lot of Morgan's memories from before Talos, so I think I see Alex and his bullshit without the same kinds of filters Morgan has.  
>  S14: I mean, probably. Can't exactly ask Morgan about it.

"Don't know if he'd answer you anyway," Danielle says, pulling a large chip out of the Operator casing and setting it to the side. "He put a bunch of checks on Alex hre, making him put things to vote and that kind of thing, but I think to Morgan, that was more to protect the rest of us than to protect himself."

> S14: Sounds right.  
>  S14: You don't make something like January unless you've got some big problems.  
>  S14: Not just in terms of the plan to blow up the station, but making something with your own voice to tell you to kill yourself?

"Shit," Danielle says. "Yeah."

> S14: Yeah.  
>  S14: So I can deal with Alex, but I'm not exactly a fan.

"Didn't expect the alien to be so good at psychology," she says.

> S14: Probably comes with the territory when you're still trying to figure out what the fuck a human is.

"And how's that going for you?"

You make a disgusted sound around your mouthful of fries, and she laughs again. "Yeah sounds about right."

> S14: A lot of the things the tests in the simulation were designed to measure are exactly what makes humans different from Typhon.  
>  S14: Empathy. Creativity. Identity.  
>  S14: But as for what that means for me? I've got nothing.  
>  S14: I don't think I could pass for human if I tried, and I don't really want to.

"Sounds pretty typically human to me," Danielle says. She pulls herself out of the Operator for a moment, sitting back on her heels to look at you. "Think of it like this: If you could go back to being Typhon, just a regular ole garden variety Phantom - would you?"

And you have to think about it, have to really consider it before you can answer.

> S14: No. I wouldn't.  
>  S14: There wouldn't be a "me" to go back to.  
>  S14: Even as few of Morgan's memories as I have are overwhelming to whatever memories I might have had as a Phantom.

"Then that can be your answer," she says. "You don't have to pick one."

> S14: I guess that is the whole point, isn't it?

"Kinda, yeah." Danielle leans back down into the Operator. You hear the sound of wires being connected. "Okay, existential nonsense over. I think this guy's just about done, can you make one of the others buzz over here?"

The casual way she makes the request surprises you, even after that, but you obligingly nudge the Operator from over Mikhaila's console in her direction. Danielle puts the casing back in place on the first Operator and gives it a bit of a pat before turning it on; it immediately makes a familiar beep and rises into the air to wander around the room.

> S14: What's the deal with those, anyway?

"We use them as remote viewing Operators when the sim is running," she says. "But we actually do need them to do their jobs the rest of the time, so we change the parts in and out."

> S14: Makes sense. Alex is definitely the only person who'd go into an enclosed space with a Phantom.

"Only since Morgan left," Danielle says. "They fought like dogs over it. Alex actually had a point for once, since the only other functional Operators we have are the other medic and Leslie."

> S14: Leslie?

"Repurposed engineering Operator. Morgan and I rigged her up to watch the security cameras - way easier to have an Operator do it, they don't need piss breaks."

The Science Operator floats over your head with a familiar "Hello."

> S14: But why "Leslie"?

Danielle shrugs the arm that isn't elbow-deep in an Operator. "You're the guy with Morgan's brain, I was hoping you could tell _me_. All I know is that Alex groaned when he heard it."

You shake your head, grinning, and set your plate aside to sit on the floor with her. If you have a brain packed full of Morgan's skills, you might as well put it to good use.

\----

Once you've finished with the Operators, you wind up helping Danielle run checks on the rest of the lab equipment and drives. It gives you something to do other than sit and stare at the chatroom, which is a good thing, considering that you see to have inherited Morgan's restless need to be doing something.

It's not until fairly late that she leaves, and you're alone in the labs again, flopped out on your cot and watching the chat scroll by. Apparently, the server has a specific channel for Typhon speculation, and you wind up there mostly out of morbid curiosity.

> M.FORD: But why have the Telepaths at all? That's what I want to know.  
>  R.POOLE: The blowing people's heads up thing is something they do in self-defense. If there's nothing there they just kind of... Hold onto you.  
>  R.POOLE: That's the part that still freaks me out, way more than having Morgan open the doors and chuck one of those Nullwave things in my face.  
>  R.POOLE: No idea how Rani stayed conscious.  
>  I.LAKE: And that's why I'd rather mess with the Chief.  
>  S14: I have an answer, but you probably won't like it.

The chat goes silent for a moment, not even a typing notification at the bottom.

> C.POPINGA: i'm probably going to regret this.  
>  C.POPINGA: okay, expert, lay it on us.  
>  S14: Okay, so, you know that Mimics reproduce by consuming consciousness.  
>  S14: Or at least I assume that everyone knows that at this point.  
>  I.LAKE: I don't think it was officially confirmed but if you're going to confirm it, great, we can check that one off.  
>  S14: Right, so that's the beginning part of the Typhon system. Telepaths are more advanced, but they're still... What, cognitovorous?  
>  M.FORD: Blame Igwe for that one.  
>  S14: It's not wrong, it's just unwieldy as all hell.  
>  S14: The point is that Telepaths /maintain/ the food supply for the Coral and the other Typhon.  
>  S14: They don't 'eat' your mind all at once like a Mimic or a Weaver, they lick bits off it slowly.  
>  S14: You'd still die eventually, but that's why you can still think. The Telepath is harvesting your thoughts.  
>  I.LAKE: Oh my god.  
>  C.POPINGA: i was right, i do regret this.  
>  R.POOLE: So it's like, what, those ants that farm aphids for food, and we're the aphids?  
>  M.FORD: Or like cordyceps.  
>  S14: Like what?  
>  M.FORD: It's a kind of fungus that takes control of an insect's brain and pilots the body up to the highest point it can to release spores.  
>  M.FORD: Which get blown on the breeze to infect other insects.  
>  S14: Ah. Somewhere between the two then, yes.  
>  I.LAKE: And now I'm going to have even MORE nightmares.  
>  C.POPINGA: i didn't want this. thanks, 14, you're a pal.  
>  S14: Sorry.  
>  M.FORD: Nature is terrifying: space edition.  
>  M.MALINARO: Great thing to wake up from a nightmare to. Anyone in for hot chocolate?  
>  C.POPINGA: put some whiskey in it and you can count me in.

You drift out of the chat at that point. It's hard to tell exactly how seriously you might have freaked people out, and how much was just humans being humans. You briefly consider sending a "Thanks for the lessons on emotional nuance" to the M.YU at the bottom of the list, but you're saved from the decision by a notification from S.ELAZAR.

> S.ELAZAR: Spooking the crew over chat aside, I don't see any reason to think you're a danger to anyone.  
>  S.ELAZAR: Unless there's an incident in the night, I don't see any reason to not let you have full run of the facility starting tomorrow afternoon.  
>  S14: Thanks.  
>  S.ELAZAR: If there's nothing else, I'll see you after lunch.

You stare at the phone, considering.

> S14: Did I upset anyone too badly?  
>  S.ELAZAR: Most of the Telepath survivors aren't going to sleep too well tonight, but nothing anyone won't recover from.  
>  S.ELAZAR: They've gotten themselves worse with their own theories.  
>  S14: Okay. Thanks.

That's a comfort, at least. You can rely on Sarah to be honest with you, or at least you think you can. It's probably why Morgan's notes considered her trustworthy.

With that in mind, you drop the phone screen-down on top of the folder still next to your pillow. The folder itself seems to tug at your attention with a feeling of dread, but you leave it with the cover securely closed and instead let yourself start to drift.

Part of you wonders if, if you let yourself drift through Morgan's memories of the aftermath of Talos long enough, you'll be able to put together what happened to him.

\----

_You enter the room - there's nothing but blank walls, a single chair, and a glass divider separating you from the people on the other side. You can't help the way the familiarity makes you seize up, the memory of a testing chamber and a group of increasingly confused scientists on the other side, but this isn't Talos._

_Talos is long gone._

_Still, there's some latent part of you that just wants to turn into another chair until they go away._

_You pull at the Phantom-based tendrils of power around your mind instead, and step from the door to in front of the chair in a single swift, controlled movement. It's enough of a demonstration that the woman opposite you goes wide eyed, and the security hire at her shoulder actually takes a step back._

_If you can't be as confident as you need to look, putting your enemy off-balance will do._

_"Hi, Kasma," you say, settling into the chair like it's a throne, tapping your fingers on the armrests. The smile on your face isn't for her. "You look like you've seen a ghost."_

\----

You wake with a start, the words sticking in your head like a mantra.

_You look like you've seen a ghost._

Wasn't that what Austin said, when you turned into a mug and scared Lisa so badly?

It hangs in your skull like the words of Phantoms in the sim, except layered together in Morgan's voice coming from your throat, coming from every side at once. And as you turn it over in your head, it falls into place.

Phantom, Poltergeist, and... whatever you are, something not entirely distinct from them but different enough. Something more than the memory of Morgan Yu and the digitized wishes of January.

Your hand lands on the phone beside your pillow.

> S14: Hey. Call me Ghost.


	4. Chapter 4

> D.SHO: I got up special to change your name in the chat, so I hope you appreciate it.  
>  GHOST: Thanks. You could have left it to Steve, though.  
>  D.SHO: I think you still spook him a little.  
>  GHOST: Ha.  
>  D.SHO: Had to use it before you get sick of the jokes.  
>  D.SHO: Congrats on the name, though. I'm going back to bed.  
>  GHOST: See you later.

You close Danielle's message click through the couple variations on other people congratulating you on choosing a name (Igwe, Austin, Ingram, a couple of the other crew you haven't actually met in person yet) and, with a sigh, open the message from Alex.

> A.YU: Congratulations. Chief Elazar sent me her verdict this morning, and I'm in full agreement.  
>  A.YU: And I see you've already gotten your server handle changed.  
>  GHOST: Yeah.  
>  A.YU: Any particular reason for the choice?  
>  GHOST: It just felt right.

You're not going to tell him about the dream-memory of Morgan's meeting with Kasma. You can still see that empty room and chair if you close your eyes.

> A.YU: It's certainly fitting.  
>  A.YU: Would you care for a tour this afternoon?  
>  GHOST: Thanks, but I think I'll manage. Kind of want to explore on my own.  
>  A.YU: All right. If you need anything, don't hesitate to drop by.

It's unlikely, but you don't say that. There's not that much you can imagine needing from Alex at this point.

> GHOST: Am I still going to be sleeping in here?  
>  A.YU: Not unless you want to. This facility was designed with a staff of 250 in mind - there's a lot more room than at Talos.  
>  A.YU: If you like, I can give you a more detailed floor plan with which rooms in the crew quarters are spoken for.  
>  GHOST: That'd be a big help.

Tiny rooms, communal showers; typical Transtar fare, but it's enough space for everyone to have a room the size of the cabins on Talos. Sure enough, there's a handful of executive suites set at the top, with views looking out the cliff-face; of course Alex has laid a claim to one. Igwe has another, a third is Sarah's, and the fourth is of course...

> A.YU: Morgan's room is open, if you want it.  
>  GHOST: Thanks, but I think I'll pass.

You don't need to freak yourself out by sleeping in the man's bed, though morbid curiosity has you wondering if it's arranged in the same way as the apartment in both the sim and the actual crew quarters aboard Talos. Maybe you'll go investigating it later.

Most of the rest of the crew is down in the bottom two floors, which leaves you two floors in the middle to consider. Not sleeping in the exact same space as the rest will probably help with their anxiety.

> A.YU: Just inform Sarah or one of the other Security officers of your choice once you've decided.  
>  GHOST: I will. Later.

And that's enough of that for one day.

Under Alex's messages is another, from an unexpected source.

> M.ILYUSHIN: When you are free, come see me.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: There are some things you ought to know, best spoken of privately.  
>  GHOST: That's not ominous at all.  
>  GHOST: I'll come by, though.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: I will be in my rooms this evening, then.

And that's it, no greeting or farewells exchanged. It's not unexpected, considering the source, but you can't help but nurse your curiosity a little.

If nothing else, Mikhaila is the only one of your 'judges' that you haven't yet spoken to in person. You'd go just for that, to get a better idea of what's going on.

And last on the bottom -

> A.INGRAM: Hey, I'm on labs cleaning duty - want some lunch when I come up?  
>  GHOST: Sure, that sounds great.

At least you have one person around to be the odd man out with.

\----

After lunch, you help out with cleaning the labs, and manage with only one cracked joke about how you're a walking violation of decontamination guidelines. Ingram - or maybe you probably should start thinking of him as Aaron, if he's going to be the one who actually chooses to hang out with you - actually laughs at it. So you'll call that a win.

> GHOST: What's going to happen in here now?

"Mary's probably going to take it over again," Aaron replies. "She and Caleb have been working on trying to get a portable Fabricator going - there's an earlier model than the ones from Talos here, they moved it downstairs, but it's a pain in the ass to use."

> GHOST: That the only one?

"Yeah, it's set up by medical. We've got three Recyclers, though, and the one out in the gardens is on wheels. Mary wants a matched set."

You nod, and nudge the motorized vacuum a bit with your mind to make it go over a spot it missed. It obligingly beeps and shuttles itself across the floor.

> GHOST: Seems like a smart thing to have, unless you intend to stay here forever.

Aaron sighs. "A couple of the others want to; you already ran into David, Gary hates the Typhon, and Steve and Richard think that this is the only safe place left. I think Maxine wants to go looking for survivors to bring them here, and she's got Officer Rose on her side; Frank's the opposite, he's convinced that the only reason we don't have Typhon banging down our doors is because thirty people isn't enough to bother with."

You tack the words onto the vague impressions of the people in question; most of them you don't know anything more of them than the muddly impressions you can dredge up from what Morgan left behind for you.

Before you can reply, there's the feeling of someone else arriving. You look in that direction, and it's with a relief at someone you actually do recognize. Kevin Hague looks thinner and older than he did in the sim (even if that was less than a year ago), and dressed in a short-sleeve button-up, you can see a laserburn scar along his arm, presumably from one of Dahl's Operators.

"Hey," he says, giving the two of you a small wave. "Chief says you're free to wander, at least around the facility."

> GHOST: That's it? I expected a ceremony.

Aaron chuckles as Kevin pulls out his phone to see the message. Kevin looks like he wants to laugh a little, too. "Maybe if Alex was in charge of it," he says.

> GHOST: Should've guessed. He likes pomp as much as ever.  
>  GHOST: I'm going to go check things out, then.

But as you're on your way to leave, Kevin's phone beeps twice, and then blasts out (in a computerized version of Danielle Sho's voice that clearly belongs to an Operator), "Unknown Typhon organism at Harbor Gate. All Security and Research personnel on-duty to report. Repeat: unknown Typhon organism at Harbor Gate."

You turn back, alarmed, as Kevin holds the phone up to his ear. "Gotcha, Leslie, I'll be right there." He looks your way. "Chief, I think the newbie wants to come."

"Good," Sarah's voice says, just audible from the other end of the line. "Maybe he can give us some insight as to what this thing is. Elazar out."

You _probably_ shouldn't be grinning the way you are, but after three days sitting idle in the labs, you'd take just about anything to give yourself something to do.

"You heard the Chief," Kevin says. "Let's get out there."

You nod, and if there is any significance to leaving the labs for the first time, you leave it behind there, too, because you have better things to do.

\----

The Harbor Gate is one that separates the facility from the small underground cavern with a set of docks and a single supply ship. The whole thing is artificial, carved out of the cliffside by TranStar during the construction of the facility. There are two Typhon gates, forming what is effectively an anti-Typhon airlock through the tunnel leading to the rest of the facility.

Outside, in the dim light of sunlight reflected off the water, a single Typhon hovers. It's smaller than a Phantom, but larger than a Mimic, and vaguely humanoid, with a pair of legs that come down to points about a foot off the ground and a similarly thin torso and arms. The only part of it that has any bulk is the shifting tendrils that would be loosely called hair on a human, which move in twisted clumps through the air.

It floats like it's waiting for something, is your first thought, and then you shiver.

Sarah and Alfred Rose are already there when you and Kevin arrive. Sarah gives the both of you a nod. There's a cart of weapons next to her, and the military Operator floats by her side.

"Just waiting on Rani, and Igwe and Lisa with the psychoscopes," she says. "Maybe Alex. In the meantime, Ghost, do you have anything?"

You watch the shifting of the Typhon through the glass of the doubled gates and shiver again before turning back to the humans on your side. When you touch your mind to the phone in your pocket, you're sure to include the people who haven't arrived yet in the message.

> GHOST: It's made the same way as Phantoms, I think.  
>  GHOST: Other than that? Watching it gives me a headache. That's all I've got.

"Better than nothing," Alfred says. "And we really need to get you a text-to-voice."

You shrug, and look at the hallway at the feeling of Igwe and Lisa approaching, a good second or two before the sound of another wheeled cart announces them. Lisa is already wearing a psychoscope; Igwe has his ridiculous straw hat from before balanced on his head, but sweeps it off immediately to replace it with one of the scopes from the cart.

Rani Chaudhary is only steps behind them, wearing a familiar security uniform. She gives you a thorough looking-over, just a bit suspicious, before turning her eyes towards the Typhon outside. You can feel the faint twist of a Typhon-based neuromod in her mind, maybe two, before you pull your awareness inward.

"If it's similar to Phantoms," Igwe is saying, as your brain catches up with processing the words, "then is it another anomaly? Like the Poltergeist?"

You take half a second to realize the question is directed at you, then shake your head. "Don't think so," you manage to say.

Igwe nods, and offers you another psychoscope from the cart, to which you shake your head. Rani takes it instead, fitting it over her close-cropped hair with practiced ease.

"Any idea what it can do?" she says, and you automatically switch back to 'typing' for the more complex ideas.

> GHOST: Other than fly? Your guess is as good as mine.  
>  GHOST: It's probably not that sturdy, at least.

That gets nods from around the group. "Good to know," Sarah says. "We'll scan it first, then - give Alex something new to play with. Is there a reason he isn't here?"

Lisa shrugs just as you feel the trademark weight at the edge of your awareness. "Incoming," you say, just as the familiar set of footsteps rounds the corner.

Alex has a psychoscope on, too, and he seems a little startled by your presence before turning his attention to Sarah. "I hope I wasn't holding things up, Sarah," he says, in what you know to be his best smoothing things over voice.

"Just get ready to get those scans," she replies. "Inner gate opening in five..."

The group wearing psychoscopes assembles at the edge of the boundary. Behind them, the military Operator floats up, ready to shoot over their heads at the slightest signal.

Outside, you see the Typhon twist in the air where it drifts, almost making a figure-eight with its body, "head" now pointed downwards.

"It may be closer to a Poltergeist than a Phantom," Igwe says. "The levitation seems related to the lift field..."

"We've been trying to isolate that ability since we saw it in the Weavers," Alex says. "If we could manage to..."

"That's probably all the data we're going to get out of this one," Lisa says. "Let's get out of the way, let security do their jobs." She pushes the visor part of the psychoscope back onto her head.

Alex hums thoughtfully and glances in your direction. "Sarah, would it be possible - "

"It's up to him," she interrupts. "You're the one who went to all the effort to make him a person, the least you can do is treat him like one."

"I wouldn't even ask without approval from our Security Chief," Alex says, not at all apologetic. He turns to you, and for a moment you can feel a space of disconnect, between where Morgan would agree just because it's Alex, and your ability to decide things for yourself.

> GHOST: Double the data for you, right?  
>  GHOST: I'll do it. I'm curious about what this thing can do, too.

And curious about what it _feels_ like, outside those gates and the protective walls of the facility.

Alex nods, and you can see him smile underneath the psychoscope. "Glad to hear it. With your abilities, you're better equipped to handle unknown Typhon than the rest of us."

You nod.

> GHOST: Can I get a shotgun, some rounds, and something heavy to hit it with if all hell breaks loose?

"It's not all hell until the Nightmares show up," Sarah says, but she relinquishes the shotgun she's holding. You sling it over one shoulder and accept the fire ax she hands you next. Heavy _and_ sharp, definitely an upgrade over the wrench you had as a constant companion in the sim. "Go ahead and take the Operator, if you think you need it."

You shake your head and step past Alex and Igwe into the space between the gates, checking the load on the shotgun as you go. Eight rounds - should be enough to handle anything at short range. That done, you reach out and _pull_ , at the threads of electricity that naturally exist, until they manifest in your free hand.

The door behind you slides closed. And then you can feel more than hear the next countdown -

_Three, two, one -_

The door in front of you opens with a sliding hiss. For a moment, the Typhon outside, still completing its strange, hovering loop, seems almost to not notice you. But then you feel it, its attention, its -

It's not curious. It doesn't care what you are. It just knows that you are not _of it_ , and therefore you are food.

With the electricity in your hand, you throw, hoping to stun it long enough to get up into close range. It sparks, seizing under the electricity, but recovered faster than you expected - _moves_ faster than you expected. The narrow points of its arms and legs are more like blades, slicing through the material of your not-spacesuit and shoulder more cleanly and painfully than you expected.

 _Shit_. Of all the things you expected, a delicate and _fast_ melee fighter wasn't high on the list. The humans behind you might as well not exist, because all you can feel is you and _it_ , and the wound in your shoulder that threatens to force your arm to dissolve back into a Phantom's tendrils.

You shoot. It knocks the Typhon back a couple feet, out of immediate range, and you _shift_ after it, firing again while there's still black mist around your feet. Typhon don't vocalize, but you can _feel_ its pain, reaching out across -

You fire a third time, and it crumples in a skinny, twisted corpse with the slick sheen common to all Typhon flesh. It lets up a pressure on your mind, when it dies, like your ears popping at altitude, something you didn't even notice until it was gone.

> GHOST: I assume you want what's left of it to dissect.  
>  A.YU: That would be much appreciated.

You sigh, flicking the safety back into place on the shotgun before picking up the remains. They're as unpleasant to handle, already chill, as they ever were in the sim.

When you come back through the gates, Lisa's already got a lower, refrigerated drawer of the science cart open, and you're all too happy to hand them off to her. You drop your equipment back onto the security cart after, and lean against the side of it, finally taking the time to see to your shoulder properly.

It's a good thing that you don't actually need the space suit that you're still wearing for lack of anything else, because the slash through it would take a little more than a pocket repair kit to fix up. The cut underneath hasn't bled much, but you're fairly sure it goes through muscle, or whatever illusion of human muscle you have at the moment.

It doesn't _hurt_ as much as it seems like it should. Maybe your pain response is muted compared to a human's. It still feels unstable, though, and when you relax, your arm from the shoulder down shifts back into twisting tendrils, black and too-long for your body. The air pressure on your skin feels almost oppressive for a moment, Typhon nerves designed for vacuum or other low-atmosphere environments not used to the weight of true atmosphere.

You can feel the way it gets the attention of everyone else in the room, but you're saved any reactions beyond Rani shivering and looking away by Sarah saying, "If that's everything, back to your posts."

"You should get that checked out," Alfred says as he passes by. "Even if it's... y'know."

You nod. Even if there's not any doctors who know how to treat Typhon injuries, well, you can at least have Emmanuella look at the human side of it.

> GHOST: Are you in the medbay?  
>  E.DESILVA: Yes.  
>  GHOST: Great. I'm coming in.  
>  E.DESILVA: You haven't even been out of the labs two hours and you're already injured?  
>  GHOST: /Someone/ had to take care of that new Typhon that showed up.  
>  GHOST: Also, do you have any clothes in there that aren't mimicked uniforms that I could have?  
>  E.DESILVA: I'll see what I can do.  
>  E.DESILVA: It's a good thing I'm already grey.  
>  GHOST: Thanks. See you soon.

You stand and drop the phone back into your pocket, turning back towards the main part of the facility. As you go, you can feel the weight of Alex's attention on your back.

\----

You still haven't been able to make your arm go back to normal by the time you make your way to medical. Fortunately, the only person you run into is Mary Malinaro bent over the Fabricator just outside; you give her an awkward wave with your human arm and she stares for a moment before returning it. Her attention is still mostly on the Fabricator and the half-assembled parts surrounding her, though.

(One Typhon mod, you observe idly as you pass her by. That makes, what, three people here so far besides you?)

(Do yours even count, really?)

The door slides open then, and you duck inside rather than trying to have any kind of interaction. There's less awkward times to say hi than when one of your limbs is twisty tendrils rather than fingers.

Emmanuella is inside, and she looks startled at the sight of your arm, but she waves you down to a seat on the exam chair anyway. It looks like it's seen better days, but the wrinkle of waxed paper underneath you is somehow familiar, if not exactly comforting.

You put your phone on the instrument tray next to you, so she can see it more easily. It's not like you need to be touching it to make it work. (You really should get that text to voice, a thought that turns into a reminder jotted in the phone's calendar app with just a little psychic pressure.)

"Alright," Emmanuella says, pulling on a set of gloves. "What are we looking at?"

You point at your shoulder. The gash is invisible for a moment until you manage to force your arm back into a human shape, at least right there, but the control of it slips away again almost immediately.

> GHOST: So aside from the obvious, apparently I can't make it mimic.

"Any pain?"

> GHOST: Some, but not as much as I think there should be?  
>  GHOST: Bearing in mind that I only have Morgan's memories of pain to go off.

She nods. "Could be nerve damage, could be Typhon-related. Or both." She steps closer to get a better look, and you lean your head away just enough to give her a clearer view. "There's still a slice here in the Typhon flesh, it's just harder to see," she concludes after a moment. "Do you know how close to the surface your nervous system is?"

> GHOST: No idea. Better to ask Alex, probably.

Emmanuella sighs. "He's going to want to take some neuroscans soon anyway. Make it human if you can, I don't know how the medkits interact with Typhon matter."

She breaks one open as you close your eyes to better focus on getting your shoulder the right species. It's not that easy; human tactile perception isn't that different from Typhon perception. The hypersensitivity to air pressure fades, replaced by - you flinch as some of the pain comes back stronger.

> GHOST: Okay, that's definitely a Typhon thing. Ow.

"Don't be a baby," she says, and then there's the relief of the medkit's gel being applied, your flesh knitting back together. The effort needed to focus on being human decreases, until you're able to open your eyes again.

> GHOST: Much better. Thanks.

Emmanuella hums. "Better shift back to make certain we got all of it," she says, taking a step back. You tell yourself it's just to give you space, not because she has any reason to be afraid of you.

Shedding Morgan feels even stranger to do than it did the last time you did it; the Phantom that you can see in the mirror that hangs on one wall is impossible to recognize as yourself. It's a little comical, to see a Phantom seated on the edge of the exam chair like a normal patient. Probably belongs on a movie poster.

Colors grow duller, but you can see the motion of Emmanuella's chest rising and falling as she breathes, something that just fades into the background of your human senses. You can hear it, too. And your psychic sense is more precise - you can feel not only the woman in the room with you, but Mary outside and the rudimentary consciousness of the medical Operator bobbing in place across the room.

You can feel the way Emmanuella has to force herself to take that first step forward, and then the way her focus narrows down at your shoulder. You can feel the handful of Neuromods in her head, Typhon flesh manipulated to be a part of her, and you feel like you can almost tell what they can do. There's a stray thought that you almost catch before you realize it, and she says, "Operator, more light."

"Yes, Dr. DeSilva," says the automated voice. "Just a moment." And then it bobs closer and shines a bright light at where your wound was. There's nothing there but a smooth ripple of flesh, the light shining off it, and Emmanuella walks part of a circle around you before nodding.

"Looks good," she says, at practically the same instant you've written _Looks good_ on the screen of the phone, the words stolen from her mouth. She looks at the phone, and then back at you, and you -

You turn back into Morgan so quickly you can almost feel a snap in the air. "Sorry," you say, squeezing your eyes shut and willing the sense of her mind back and away from you.

> GHOST: I didn't mean to  
>  GHOST: It was  
>  GHOST: You're very loud. Sorry.

You realize that you're pressing the base of your hands into your eyelids. You hear the medical Operator beep and float away.

"It's okay," Emmanuella says. "Take your time."

So you do. You just breathe and wait for the tendrils of your thoughts to grab hold of words again, to make sense of what you just experienced. The seat under you and the sound of your own breathing help pull you back, remind you what being human is supposed to feel like.

It's not a perfect remedy, but it helps. You can still feel Emmanuella, but she fades more into the background, no longer the mental equivalent of a light shined in your eyes. Being Morgan-shaped gives you a buffer you hadn't even realized you needed.

> GHOST: Okay, better.

"What happened?" Emmanuella asks, and you think her tone is gentle, but you can't be sure you're processing it right. You still don't pull your hands off your face.

> GHOST: Typhon have a telepathic sense and I just kicked my own ass with it.  
>  GHOST: Didn't expect there to be that much difference between being human-shaped and being Phantom-shaped.

"Telepathic sense," she repeats, and then takes a deep breath. "Right. Are you okay with me telling Alex and research about this, or do you want to keep it confidential?"

> GHOST: I didn't think patient confidentiality applied to me.  
>  GHOST: You can tell them. It's fine.

"Of course it does," she says. "You still have the right to privacy, including regarding your medical treatment. Even if you aren't human, you're a person."

And you can feel it, her conviction, the iron will of her -

(An echo of Morgan remembers a shuttle, and the set of her shoulders, and Frank Jones cringing after her, nursing a bruised cheek.)

\- spread out like lines, and you know that there are some she will cross and some she will hold to the end of time itself. If Alex is a weight to your mental sense, then Emmanuella is the lines of a grid, not so much for being ordered but for knowing exactly where she ends.

"If nothing else," she says when you continue to be silent for a moment, "It sets a good precedent if we ever run into aliens that aren't trying to eat us."

You manage a weak chuckle at that, and finally let your hands fall from your face.

> GHOST: Thanks.

Her expression is softer than the feeling of her would have led you to think. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you that everyone started with their own ideas of what you'd be like," she says. "If you ask me, I think what you need most is the space to figure that out for yourself."

Now when you smile, it's a little easier.

> GHOST: Thanks, Dr. Mom.

There's a pause after reading the message where Emmanuella's brow scrunches up, and then she swats you in the arm. "But keep getting injured and you're grounded," she says. "I only know how to treat human patients, so there's only so much I can do."

You can't exactly argue with that.


	5. Chapter 5

After all of that, it's something of a relief to be able to get relatively away from people for a while and explore the rest of the Crew Quarters at your own pace. Now with a small pile of clothing that's actually yours (admittedly, mostly consisting of teeshirts and cargo shorts), you go through with the process of actually picking out a room to drop it all in.

(Okay, so maybe you just slide into the first room with no immediate neighbors, but it's not too close to Alex and has easy access to the elevator that isn't midway through being converted to a grav shaft. You can't ask for much more than that.)

In the relative safety of your room, then, you take a deep breath and let go. 'Morgan' dissolves away, leaving just a Phantom, sitting on the edge of a bed like a human.

There's no one immediately close to you, which is what you were hoping for. You repress the Phantom's instinct to wander back and forth across the room and sit, with a stillness that can only belong to a human. Even mimics are only ever still when they're in morph, hiding, waiting to ambush.

And then, slowly you reach out, into that space where Coral should be, and you listen for the things that no one else can hear.

The people you know are the easiest to find. Alex is down in the labs, probably examining the body of the Typhon from earlier. Sarah is in a part of the facility you haven't explored yet, probably the security office. Danielle and Emanuella are still below you, both of them in the relatively crowded area that must be the cafeteria - for all that seven people makes a crowd here.

You're a Phantom, and you don't need to breathe, but you hold onto the feeling of taking a deep breath, and for a while you just listen to the psychic sounds of the Kalaupapa facility around you. You can't quite tell everyone apart, much less recognize them, but you think you could, given enough time to study them.

It's not like the Coral. It's not anything like the Coral, not anything that replaces what you know should be there, in the place between instinct and conscious knowledge. The Coral is like a blanket over everything, and the humans around you are so many moving parts.

But they're there, and you feel, for a moment, less hopelessly alone.

Downstairs, there's the feeling of a mind in motion, the only one without even a single neuromod offsetting it from the noise, and you sigh, pulling back into yourself, back into Morgan. Then you pull on clothes that feel strange against your skin, after all your life with mimicked clothing that was as much a part of you as your body. There's no reason to keep Mikhaila waiting any longer than you already have.

\----

> GHOST: Knock knock.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: One moment.

The door in front of you slides open. Mikhaila is there, with one hand on the keypad, looking more tired and pale than she was even in the sim. That isn't even the most striking thing about her now, though.

She's sitting. In a chair that hovers, the tiny wings of an Operator husk strapped to either side waving through the air. Her phone is in her lap, and there's a touchpad attached to one of the chair's armrests.

You aren't sure what to do with your face for a moment, much less what to say, and she gives you a wry look, even as tired as she is. "Paraplexis," she says simply, and it explains enough that you can follow. "I can only walk on good days, now."

> GHOST: I'm sorry.

"Don't be," she says. "It is no one's fault."

You're not sure if that makes you feel any better, but you edge into her room anyway. There's nowhere to sit but her bed, so you perch on the edge, not quite comfortable but as relaxed as you're going to get.

Mikhaila nods, and shuts the door behind you. With a little pressure on her touchpad, the chair floats over and settles just above the ground across from you. She reaches up to her neck and takes off the chain hanging there - from it hang a pair of thumb drives, one of which she unstrings and hands to you.

"From Morgan," she says as you take it. "He couldn't be sure what Alex would tell you."

> GHOST: So he made a backup plan, because of course he did.

She chuckles at that. "It's very Morgan-like, isn't it? For all I know, it's directions to the real information buried somewhere in his room. Or a secret supply cache on top of the Fabricator. There's no telling with him sometimes."

> GHOST: You haven't watched it?

She shakes her head. "It is between you. He left it here not knowing if we would succeed, but I think he knew that Alex would not stop until we did."

> GHOST: Sounds about right. Alex doesn't know, of course.

"Of course."

That's why Morgan would have left it with Mikhaila in the first place. You know (like the feeling of grit under fingernails, like the smell of the eucalyptus soap he used before Talos) that she's the person Morgan trusts most, especially with anything that might spite Alex.

The same way you know what's on the other drive, the one she returns to hanging around her neck.

> GHOST: What happened there? Why isn't he here?  
>  GHOST: I can't even figure out if he's alive or dead.

"He's alive," she says. "Or at least he was the day we pulled you out of the sim. He calls about once a week, to check in."

You don't know how you feel about hearing that. Maybe you should be relieved that he's alive, but mostly you just feel a particular kind of anxiety knot up inside your head. Some corner of you wonders if this is how adopted children feel about meeting their long estranged family, this peculiar mix of wanting to know everything and the fear of what knowing might mean.

You reach and press a hand to your face, feeling the familiar stubble. In the sim, you never noticed that it doesn't grow. Now that you're out, and have the space to think about that kind of thing, there's all sorts of little details like that that you can't help noticing.

(The space, the time, the developed humanlike cognition. At least one of the three.)

No matter what might happen to the real thing, you'll never escape Morgan Yu, age 30, looking you in the mirror. After all, you're only a mimic.

Your other hand tightens over the drive before you slide it into your pocket.

> GHOST: Why did he leave?

"The Nightmare," Mikhaila answers. "You have not been to the gardens yet, no?"

You shake your head.

"You will see, then," she says, sounding tired. "It got inside - no other Typhon and for that we were lucky, but Morgan decided it wasn't worth the risk. He has been leading it away from here on a chase since July."

You nod, sorting that into your mental time table, the index of things that you know from the folder you were given (with its ominous back pages still unopened).

"Or at least, that is what he says," Mikhaila continues. "If that is true... I will let you draw your own conclusions, but I do not think he felt safe around Alex once the sim was ready. Even before he left the last time, he kept finding excuses to be other places and work on other projects."

And that makes sense, too, somewhere deep in your gut. Of course Morgan wouldn't be able to shake that anxiety, that _fear_ \- not with a three year gap in his head and only January between him and repeating the same day forever.

Thinking about it makes _you_ anxious. And it didn't even happen to you. (Well, not technically.)

> GHOST: No, I can see that. Really easily.  
>  GHOST: It's not like it was just Alex. Other people sat back and let it happen. He was just the guy with the idea.

"And the one Morgan trusted the most, once," Mikhaila said. "After all, what kind of person would expect such a thing from their own brother?"

She reaches up and wraps her hand around the drive still on the chain. You can't help the way your eyes remain on it for a long breath, your thoughts disjointed and filled with _you must hate them very much_ and _yeah, looks good._ You have to get them under control before you let yourself 'speak' again, for fear that they'll all come right out, a Phantom's repetitive echoes over text instead of synaptic voices.

> GHOST: How much of the sim was what really happened?  
>  GHOST: I got one answer from Alex, but I want to hear yours, too.

"We added a few points where things branched in order to see what you would do," she says. "But the majority of it was straight from Morgan's memories, with some reconstruction of the details of Talos I from the rest of us. It was designed to run as much off the sensory memories you possess as the computers. Alex is justifiably proud of it."

> GHOST: So it wouldn't work for anyone who wasn't part Morgan, then.  
>  GHOST: Or Morgan himself.

"Correct. Or at least not the way you experienced it - it would be much more obviously a simulation to anyone else."

> GHOST: Is that why I could taste the lemons?

For a moment she just stares at you, the confusion clear on her face. "The lemons?" she repeats.

> GHOST: Sorry. Joke with Danielle.

"At least you are getting along," she says. "Though you're correct; taste isn't something Alex bothered adding to the simulation, at least I knew."

> GHOST: Knew it.

A strange look passes over her face, a mixture of amusement fading into guilt before she smoothes it out. She leans back in her chair, and for a moment you aren't sure how to respond.

Mikhaila saves you the trouble. "I'm sorry," she says. "I am sure you are sick of hearing it, but you are so much like him - like the Morgan I knew, before the simulation. The Morgan I thought I knew."

> GHOST: I'm not offended.  
>  GHOST: My personality is something like 80% Morgan by weight, after all.

The smile she shows is small, this time. "There are times... All Morgan knows is that we were once close. But at times, it felt as though some part of him still remembered. And now... You have more of that Morgan, I think. The one that Alex and Talos did not break to pieces."

> GHOST: Memory isn't a single thing.  
>  GHOST: Even if his conscious memory of those times was gone, I could believe that the emotions remained.  
>  GHOST: Neuromod removal is probably not as clean-cut as everyone on Talos thought.  
>  GHOST: I mean, if it was, then why did Morgan experience personality drift?

"You're probably right," she says. You watch her fold her hands in her lap, pressing the palms together as she leans slightly in your direction. "And you, did you - no, that is asking too far. I apologize."

You can see the pain in her face, the way her eyes slide away from looking at you even though her head doesn't move. Compared to the rest of the crew, her neuromod-less mind is much quieter, smoother, harder to pick up stray thoughts from. It's slick, like the undisturbed surface of a lake, without the Typhon-based beams of light that allow you to see to the bottom of everyone else.

You still aren't sure how to think of your abilities, if it's something that grows in place of your ability to connect to the Coral, now lost. If it's just oversensitivity to the thoughts that you _might_ be able to hear. If it's something entirely different, or even something that all Typhon could do if they had the ability to _comprehend_ something as complex as human thoughts.

But whatever it is, you don't think you will ever see entirely to the bottom of Mikhaila Ilyushin, even if you tried.

(You wouldn't try. The human part of you wouldn't. The part that cares about causing pain to others, that wishes to avoid it, and the part of you that has a very real fear that if you did, they would destroy you.)

(It's natural for humans to fear rejection, says the part of your brain that comes from the 'Dr.' part of 'Dr. Morgan Yu.' Humans are social animals; they _need_ those connections with others. And you are at least human enough to need them, too.)

(Plus, they have shotguns, recycler charges, and a Blackbox Operator. None of those are appealing to potentially get hit by.)

But you know that, in particular, you don't want to hurt Mikhaila, even above other humans. And that is Morgan's, isn't it? That's what she topped herself from asking about.

> GHOST: I don't know if I can say.  
>  GHOST: I don't understand emotions terribly well, yet.  
>  GHOST: But I think I would like to be friends.

"Friends," she repeats. And her expression is something less pained, more hopeful, more satisfied. "I believe I can work with that."

\----

You walk her to the cafeteria after that, but bow out of actually staying to eat. You aren't really hungry, your metabolism processing food differently from a human, and there's enough of a crowd gathered up for dinner that you aren't sure you're ready to deal with right now. Not when you've already had such a full day, and Morgan's message burns a hole in your pocket.

Even though there's a computer in your new room, there's only one appropriate place to watch it - and one place where you can be certain that you won't be disturbed.

Morgan's room, at the top of the facility, is secured by, of all things, a fingerprint scanner. You don't even have to touch it with your mind to make it obey you and open the door; you just put your hand on the keypad and walk right in.

You almost wonder if it was intentional. If Morgan, on some level, wanted you to be here, to be able to come here.

Your first impression of the room makes you _extremely_ glad that you didn't choose to try to sleep here, however. The nearly-set sun still provides some natural light, which makes the main feature of the room's windowed wall and skylight all the more apparent, throwing shifting, reddish sunlight around the room.

Water. You're underwater.

For a moment, the Phantom part of your brain goes into a blind panic, and you revert, clothes dropping off your body in a heap as you flicker between forms. You _shift_ back and forth across the room several times, seeking an exit but not comprehending that the closed door behind you could be one.

It's only when you knock over a lamp that the ability to reason and process comes back to you. That the Morgan-shaped you in your own mind points out that you can't feel the pressure of the water on your skin, sensitive to the atmosphere as it already is. That the feeling of drowning is just a feeling.

It's a good thing you came alone. You move by instinct to Morgan's bed and sprawl out on it as close to face-down as a hunchbacked Phantom can get, and reassert your human form by thinking about what breathing feels like. It happens slowly, but it does happen.

Thinking is easier in Morgan's form. Humans are designed to think humanlike thoughts. It's only as you remain, lying naked in Morgan's bed in some form of great cosmic irony, that you even think to consider that the water is securely behind glass.

Well, relatively securely.

As long as no one tries to shoot it.

The sun through the shifting surface of the pool above and the artificial waterfall set in the wall in place of something more normal like a _balcony_ continues to pink and shift in angle. You let it until it's nearly gone, and then finally stand to turn on the lamp you knocked over and retrieve your clothes, phone, and the drive from your pocket.

Having to get dressed like a human before seemed like something that could quickly grow annoying. Now, you're grateful for it, for the concrete but rote movements of pulling a shirt over your head and pants over your hips.

You do kind of end up wishing for more of the telekinesis-related mods, though. Having to get up and get things feels, suddenly, extremely tedious -

And then you stop to consider the room's arrangement, and have to start laughing to yourself. The bed is in the same right corner as before (which, you realize, also puts it as far from the artificial waterfall as possible), but almost the entire room is arranged such that everything Morgan could possibly need is in clear view from the bed.

And you _know_ , in a way you haven't known anything so certainly about Morgan's fragmented memories inside you since the ones from Talos, that it's set up that way so that he can simply levitate objects to himself without having to leave the bed if he doesn't want to.

Even his computer desk is on wheels, ready to be dragged over to hang over the side of the bed. As is the coffee maker, complete with a plastic bin of coffee in the cupboard underneath. You know that without looking, and set a cup running after you turn on the lights, rolling it over to the desk where you can reach it easily. Only the hefty workbench, scattered with computer parts as always, is securely on the floor.

Even if you weren't a significant part Morgan, you have to respect his priorities. And his choice of coffee isn't bad for after the end of the world, either. It's stronger than you expect - of course, Alex probably didn't program olfactory data into the simulation, either.

It smells like familiarity. It smells like being Morgan. When you drop into a seat at his chair with his coffee in his favorite mug, the only real difference is that you turn on the computer in front of you without using your hands. Even that might not be a difference, depending on what neuromods Morgan actually has.

You have to actually reach down to plug the drive into the computer, though. That's kind of annoying.

The older comes up on the screen almost immediately. There's one text file - INSTRUCTIONS_DANIELLESHO - and one video file. Out of morbid curiosity, you open the text file first.

You almost immediately wish you hadn't. The intent of the instructions is clear enough; if Mikhaila reaches the point where her paraplexis renders her incapacitated (you can feel, can almost remember, Morgan's refusal to entertain the idea that she would die), Danielle is the backup.

Because - as Morgan says himself - even if he can't trust her to protect him, he can trust her to want to spite Alex.

You close the document.

The video, when it opens, surprises you by loading in a regular video player. After the impossibly lifelike resolution of the Looking Glass videos, it feels almost pedestrian.

Morgan is sitting in the very chair you are right now, his back turned to the desk and a mug of coffee near his elbow. The camera has the faint bob of a levitating object - either an Operator or controlled by Morgan to hover.

If you were anyone else, you probably wouldn't be able to spot the differences so easily. Morgan's shaved off the stubble, which is obvious, but his haircut is rougher and his cheeks are a little sunken. He's thinner - all the Talos survivors are, but it's somehow much more obvious with him.

"Hi," he says."Today is June 21st, 2035. Let's see if I can manage to not screw this video up this time."

"If you're watching this - well, congratulations on satisfying whatever metrics Alex and the others decided to use in the end. I don't know how many tries it took them, obviously, but they must have figured it out at some point.

"You probably guessed this, but I left the project after giving them a good deep neuroscan to work with. The most recent one, which is probably the one you're based off, was five days ago, on June 16th. You probably wanted to know that, if you didn't already.

"I hope this works," Morgan says, and here he leans forward, elbows on his knees, a posture that's all too familiar to you. _You'e not going to like what I have to say next._ "Not just because it's kind of a last ditch effort and we're running out of ideas, but because I don't know how much longer I'm going to be around. Tomorrow I'm going to set off for KASMA's western HQ in Honolulu, to try and sell some of the TranStar tech we don't need for supplies. But after that... I don't know.

"I can't stand to be around Alex anymore. You probably guessed that, too. I wouldn't blame you if you hated him, for the shit he's pulled, for what he did to me. To us, maybe. I don't know how much of that counts when you're making someone else live through a programmed version of your life to try and shape them into something that can understand humans.

"But I can't hate him. That's why I have to go. Because if I stay, I know he'll talk me into some other project, and then another, and... I don't know if I can stop it from being Talos I again. Alex and I bring out the most extreme parts of each other, the best and the worst. He thinks we're great together - he's so glad that I was willing to work with him at all on this, even after he started talking about simulations and..."

Morgan trails off, takes a deep breath, sighs. "We _were_ great together, once. But we're also dangerous together, because we don't have any brakes."

"I don't know how much you remember. How much you _know_. But Alex will never be good enough for himself, so he'll keep trying, and he thinks that he's got to be good enough for _me_ , when I just want..."

Again, he trails off, this time to put a hand over his face. The camera sinks steadily lower for a minute, before he pulls it back up with a wave of one hand. "Sorry. I'm a mess, but you probably already knew that. You probably know that better than anyone, since you're seeing it from the inside.

"Trust your instincts - if you made it through any version of the simulated Talos, they're good enough to use as a starting point. Don't trust everything you hear, but I probably don't need to tell you that. Trust the people who earn it - the ones who give you clarity instead of making things muddier. That was my mistake.

"I hope I get to meet you someday," he says, surprising you. You don't know why it's so surprising; surely if nothing else, Morgan would be just as curious about you as you are about him. "The way things are now... Well, we'll just have to wait and see."

The camera suddenly zooms towards his extended hand, and there's a bit of bouncing before the video ends. You're left staring at the screen, the image of his face still imprinted on your vision, on your mind. For a moment, you'd forgotten you weren't looking a screen, everything else about the room blocked out.

For a moment, the only thing that stopped you from trying to reach out to touch him was the lack of his presence against your mind.

You push away from the desk and roll over to the workbench, needing something to fidget with while you get your thoughts in order. Brainscan from June, and it's only September - Alex must have pushed hard in order to make you exist. The Morgan that lives in your mind instead of in video points out that this is typical of him, that Alex always gets wrapped up in his ideas until he either succeeds or they blow up in his face.

You pick up a dead circuitboard and Morgan knows what needs to be done to fix it. Before you're entirely conscious of it, the sky outside the waterfall is entirely dark, and you have thin lines of solder in front of you that you were never taught to make. You expected a plan. Another convoluted, January-esque backup plan, not advice and awkward rambling.

The Morgan that exists outside your head didn't tell you much that you didn't already know, or couldn't have found out. It would have been easy enough to find out when he left, get a better idea of the calendar if you'd bothered. You didn't need him to tell you, in not quite so many words, to be careful about trusting Alex.

And yet, it's strangely reassuring, to have your instincts... not quite confirmed, but acknowledged. Trust the people who've earned it - advice you shouldn't need, but. Well, it's not like Morgan would have any idea how functionally human you were when he made that video.

"I hope I get to meet you someday," you repeat under your breath, fiddling with the circuitboard.

When you're satisfied, you find it takes a surprising amount of mental effort to make yourself leave the room, instead of just following Morgan's instinctive footsteps to collapse into his bed. It's really only the sound of the water outside that stops you.

You leave the drive in Morgan's computer, with a new text file in it, short and to the point.

_Thanks. I hope I get to meet you, too._

\----

_The atmosphere of levity in the shuttle, the feeling of freedom that comes after escaping with your lives, comes to a sudden end when the communication system wedged behind the cockpit goes off._

_You're the first there, of course, lifting yourself out of the cockpit and closing Dahl in with the controls. Maybe that's dangerous, but it would be far more dangerous to let him hear whatever the message is. There's still guns in here, even if you left most of the Operators behind on Talos._

_Alex comes up behind you. You wedge yourself into the corner so that both of you can access the screen, and the rest of the shuttle goes silent._

_"Status report, Dahl," says a familiar voice. You knew it was coming, but you still freeze up to hear it. If you turn into a mug right now, Sarah will probably shoot you on instinct, as keyed-up as everyone is, but your chief instinct is still to **hide**. "You feeds went dead hours ago."_

_"Hello, Father," Alex says, smoothly, slick as always, as though he isn't as terrified of William Yu's disapproval as you are._

_For a long moment, there's silence._

_"Alex," your father finally says. "And Morgan as well, I assume."_

_Your skin ripples, your form fluctuating. Alex leans into your side, the only thing keeping you from being - a can of coffee would be nice right about now. A box of fish sticks, a can of jellied eels._

_"In the flesh," you say, willing yourself to sound at all confident. You think it works. You **hope** it works._

_"In any other circumstance, I would give you accolades for managing to find your way off the station," your father's voice says. It is somehow even more cold than you could ever remember. "However, at this time, I can only thank you for making my job easier."_

_You know what's going to happen, then. Dahl was always going to be a loose end, and your father hates loose ends. And it's easy enough to rig a shuttle to explode remotely - you saw that yourself, in the Bridge. You could have done it, destroyed that shuttle and everyone inside, just the way your father is about to do to you._

_The shuttle is silent. You can't see anyone past Alex, who doesn't so much as glance back. You'd think he wasn't feeling anything at all, if not for the fact that the way he leans into you becomes his hand seeking yours out._

_"Goodbye, boys," your father's voice says._

_"Goodbye, William," Alex responds, voice hollow. It's the only time you've ever heard him address your father by name._

_"See you in hell, Dad," you say._

_The communication screen goes dead. You wait, you wait, and you wait, nudging Alex back out into the small hallway without letting go of his hand. You turn to look at the rest of the cabin -_

_The door to the hold slides open. All eyes in the cabin snap to it, to the casual way Austin Cool leans against the frame._

_"So," he says. "If I've had everyone back here disarming explosives for the last hour, does my foresight get me a raise, Dr. Yu?"_

_"I don't think so," you say, the words stumbling out of your mouth still on autopilot. "I think we all just got fired."_

_To your surprise, it's Alex that laughs, this time, and it's only after the door to the hold is securely shut again that he lets go of your hand._


	6. Chapter 6

When you wake, you stare at the darkness of your ceiling, willing the pulse in your chest to settle back to normal. That memory, so crystal clear, hits harder than even the one of running for the shuttle did. In Morgan's memory, there had never been a time where all was lost, until that moment.

You have no reason to be so afraid of William Yu, but the very idea of him sets off an instinct in Morgan's head, puts you on high alert the same way the thought of another simulation does.

It's no wonder that all the survivors are in hiding. Even if killing them now would doubtless be too little, too late for TranStar's reputation.

Is William Yu even alive? Probably. That much money - and you know how very much they have - is probably enough to buy protection, even from the Typhon.

It's a question that you absolutely can't ask the person most likely to know. You may not like Alex, but you're not cruel enough for that. Maybe Mikhaila, the next time you talk to her.

The clock on your phone reads 5:04 AM. _I hate you a little_ , you think to the Morgan in your head, _for being a morning person._ There's no way you're getting back to sleep, now.

Grudgingly, you pull on clothes and leave your room.

\----

The kitchens are still thankfully empty at this hour, so no one catches you making a cup of coffee and leaving again, mug in hand, to wander. With some vague intention to see what Mikhaila was talking about, you make your way to the gardens.

The TranStar Kalaupapa food gardens are not as neatly kept as the ones onboard Talos I, and they're different from the carefully cultivated 'wild' of the rest of the Arboretum. Something about the chaos of plants, packed in under the greenhouse roof, feels more natural than that.

That isn't the first thing you notice, though. The first thing you notice is that the Typhon Gate keeping the rest of the facility safe is on the inside of the gardens, not the outside, marking the area full of plants as unsecure. There's three pistols hanging under the console of the gate's computer, and, unarmed and never too wary, you take one. It goes on your belt, where you can reach it without even having to drop your coffee.

The gardens were once a completely sealed-in greenhouse, but almost as soon as you enter you can pick out half a dozen cracked or missing glass panels in the ceiling. The sun hasn't quite risen yet - you really haven't gotten nearly enough sleep - but the sky is painted pinks and oranges.

You are navigating your way around a raised bed of half-grown tomato plants when you feel a presence at the edge of the gardens. You debate for a moment, before sighing and making your way over there.

Dayo Igwe is seated on a bench set up to watch the rising sun through the glass, that ridiculous straw hat from before perched on his head. At first he seems lost in his own thoughts, as usual, but when your footsteps come close he does at least glance in your direction. Good, at least he probably won't get eaten by any Typhon that might happen to wander in through the broken ceiling today.

(The bench he's on is intact except for a Gloo stain, but there's one a little further along that's twisted like it was slammed into the wall, or possibly a Nightmare.)

"Morning," you say, coming around the bench to sit.

"Good morning," he says, and only hesitates a moment before scooting down the bench to make room for you. There's an empty thermos, a bowl with the scrapings of oatmeal around the rim, and a Gloo cannon on a rolling cart in front of him. He makes as though to clear space for your coffee mug, but you shake your head.

You lean back instead to sip, and for a time, there is silence. Finally, Igwe says, "I did not expect to see you here, of all places. At this hour... I suppose you could say that the gardens have become my own personal oasis."

You resist the urge to reach for your phone and just sit, watching him, your coffee cup still half-full and warm in your hands. If you give him room to talk, he will, far more than most other people at the facility.

"I do not like to be kept up inside anymore," he says. His gaze isn't on you anymore, but out the windows to the dawn in the distance. "You remember, I'm sure, the container - any time the walls are too close, I find myself there again."

You just nod.

"Here, there is a breeze off the ocean that comes in through the broken windows," he says. "And the Typhon do not come often enough to be too dangerous."

> GHOST: Worth the risk if it keeps you sane, huh?

He seems startled by his phone going off, jerking before pulling it out of the chest pocket of his shirt. You wonder if he had, for a moment, forgotten that you weren't Morgan. When he reads the message, he chuckles slightly.

"I suppose you could say that," he says. "I did not like small spaces much even before Talos, but now... Well, we all have our troubles."

You nod again, and it seems that that's likely to be all you're going to get out of him on that subject. You take another sip of coffee.

> GHOST: Did you get anything interesting out of that Typhon from yesterday?

"Alex was still working on the data when I went to sleep last night," Igwe says. "It seems he has decided to call them 'Specters' - I fear your taste has rubbed off on him."

It's your turn to chuckle.

> GHOST: Fits.  
>  GHOST: Starting to run out of synonyms, though.

"It appears you were correct about their origin. A number of the internal structures appear similar to Phantoms."

> GHOST: Educated guess, really.  
>  GHOST: The Typhon that aren't made out of people's bodies don't tend to be humanoid.

Except for the Nightmare, and that's a puzzle to consider later. Maybe. If you get around to it.

"No, they do not," Igwe agrees. "And you?"

You look at him and tilt your head slightly, inviting him to give you some more clarification.

"What is it that brings you out here at this hour?"

> GHOST: Woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.  
>  GHOST: I dream Morgan's memories sometimes. They're not all happy.

"Ah," Igwe says, understanding in his eyes. Whether it's understanding of what you mean or not... Well, you can never be entirely sure, with him. "I can imagine how that would be troubling."

> GHOST: Sometimes it feels like he's just out of reach.  
>  GHOST: Or like there's a gap in the people here where he should fit that I can only fill halfway.

"I believe he will return when he's ready," Igwe says. "An unpopular opinion, but I am used to that. Has anyone told you why he left?"

> GHOST: Mikhaila and I talked about it, but it's always good to hear multiple perspectives.

"Ever the scientist," Igwe says, but it's not entirely directed at you. He glances at the broken bench off to the side. "It was a morning much like this, actually - we were sitting here discussing, among other things, the possible outcomes of the project that eventually produced you, when Morgan suddenly went stiff.

"I don't know how he sensed it, but he told me to run before taking my Gloo cannon and charging for the doors. I obeyed - it was perhaps cowardly, but I'm glad that I did. I called Chief Elazar as soon as I was through the doors, and by then Morgan was already fighting.

"The battle destroyed much of the gardens on this side, as well as the Typhon Gate - it was repaired and moved to the inner door, but it's never been the same since. And Morgan... It still unsettles me, how quickly he changed. One moment he was the same Morgan as always, animated, thinking almost too quickly to keep up with, and the next it was as though all the personality had vanished from him."

> GHOST: Like when he was under the influence of the heavy neuromod cycling?

Igwe shakes his head. "That was different, and after we left Talos Morgan recovered from it remarkably - not quite the same, but the glass in his eyes was gone and he laughed and complained again. The way he got when the Nightmare came - he was alert, but it was almost like he was a Typhon himself, for all the emotion he showed."

Then he pauses. "No offense meant, of course. But even you must acknowledge that your expressiveness is an anomaly, likely caused by the influence of human cognitive processes."

> GHOST: Typhon don't feel emotion at all, so you're right about that.  
>  GHOST: Don't get lost on a tangent, though.

"Of course." There's a gust of the breeze through the windows above, whistling through the cracks in the glass. Igwe waits for it to pass before he continues. "Morgan defeated the Nightmare before Sarah and the others arrived, but he could not seem to sit still afterwards. He took the second boat in the depths of the next night and a few supplies - I do not know if he told anyone what he intended to do, but I think that if he did, it must have been Alex."

> GHOST: What makes you say that?

"Well, Alex is the one he schedules contact with," Igwe says. "And he was in quite the foul mood the next morning, but never once questioned here Morgan was, even while the rest of us searched for him."

> GHOST: Yeah, that's pretty good evidence that he knew something was up.  
>  GHOST: So he's still in contact, then? Mikhaila says he calls about once a week.

Igwe nods. "Usually, yes - sometimes it is longer, but never less than five days between calls. Alex keeps the next scheduled appointment posted outside the kitchens for anyone else who might wish to attend, but not many do. Chief Ilyushin, usually, and Chief Sho - sometimes Ingram."

You nod, drop your gaze into your coffee mug, and consider the steadily cooling liquid before draining the rest.

> GHOST: When's the next?

"Tomorrow evening, I believe." Igwe gives you a thoughtful look. "Thinking of attending?"

> GHOST: I might.  
>  GHOST: I haven't made up my mind yet, but I can't deny I'm curious.

"You have that in common," Igwe says. "I'm sure he will be just as curious about you. The last call was immediately after you were pulled from the simulation, and I'm sure Alex will be eager to update Morgan on your progress."

> GHOST: Eager to brag, you mean.

"If you wish to put it that way." Something in Igwe's tone manages to imply that he's mostly too polite to put it that way. He doesn't exactly argue with it, though. "Though I imagine you'll need to get some kind of text to speech for that, no?"

> GHOST: Yeah, I'll talk to Danielle about that later.  
>  GHOST: Haven't decided if I want Morgan's voice for that or not.  
>  GHOST: I don't want it to be just another January, you know?

"Understandable. Though, January was unusually expressive for an Operator." Igwe looks away from the screen, out the window. "I'm sure Morgan must have modified its programming extensively; it's almost a pity January was destroyed with Talos, because its decision-making was quite advanced compared to the standard Operators."

> GHOST: If you mean that he was capable of coming up with guilt-trips on the fly, yeah.

Igwe doesn't respond to that, which is probably for the better. You don't really like thinking about January on the best of days, what January _means_ about how well Morgan knew just how to get under his own skin. Mikhaila called him an outsourced conscience, but you can only remember the crunch of metal under your wrench when you think of the whole idea.

Maybe he was Morgan's conscience, and that bit was just a holdover from the real version of events. But if January was ever your conscience, why is it that you had to kill him to save anyone?

(What does it mean, you wonder, that Morgan still destroyed the station and you didn't? Is it just that he was better at planning ahead, better able to see the possibilities Dahl and his shuttle represented, or is there some other, deeper difference?)

(If you ever ask him about it, it certainly won't be anywhere Alex can hear.)

You turn your mug around in your hands.

> GHOST: The January in the sim was pretty much the same as the real one, right?  
>  GHOST: If that's true, then I think I'm glad he's gone.

But it's important to keep in mind - that the Morgan who created January, at least, was every bit as capable of manipulation as Alex. And for all that that Morgan and the Morgan who exists now aren't quite the same, for all you know, that Morgan still sleeps inside the one who left you the video with Mikhaila.

Can you trust him?

"As far as my own interactions with January, yes," Igwe says, answering the question you asked instead of the one that's on your mind. "However, I imagine a great deal of the interactions between Morgan and his Operator were just between them."

So, as usual, there's only one person who can answer your questions, and he's not here.

You stand up.

> GHOST: That's probably true.  
>  GHOST: Thanks for the talk. I'll see you around.

You feel his eyes on your back, and thoughts like a breeze behind you, as you leave.

Maybe you should talk to Alex, after all.

\----

> GHOST: Are you free to talk?  
>  A.YU: I can make some time for you any time.  
>  A.YU: Is anything wrong?  
>  GHOST: No more than usual in the post-apocalypse.  
>  GHOST: You're in the labs, right? I'll come by.

It's a comfortable enough setting, certainly better than letting him choose the meeting place somewhere _he's_ comfortable.

When you enter the labs, Lisa is the first person you see. She's bent over a series of circuit boards that look like Nullwave transmitter pieces, a few vials of Typhon fluid lined up along the edge of the table. You can feel her concentration on the project in front of her - she doesn't notice you until you're almost past her.

You wave, a little awkwardly, when she looks up. Her eyebrows scrunch up, but she waves back before going back to work.

Alex is much deeper in the labs, in a containment unit with the remains of the Specter spread out on a table. It's half-dissected and pinned in enough places that the collapsed flesh has almost been stretched back out to its previous dimensions. Unlike Lisa, he's not concentrating all that hard on it; there's just the normal weight of _Alex_ to his thoughts.

You flick a thought at his phone to make it beep as your way of announcing yourself. He looks up and then pauses to adjust his glasses. He looks almost normal, in a button-up and slacks; it's only the elbow-high gloves that make him look anything like a scientist. He strips them off to set his phone on the table and steps back.

"Care to take a look?" he asks, and you shrug before coming in.

> GHOST: Don't know if I'll be able to make heads or tails of anything.

"Indulge me," Alex says, and there's a warmth to his smile that - you're _not_ Morgan, and so you don't smile back. You have that much control over your own mind, at least.

Even as you're thinking it, you can feel Morgan's knowledge bubbling up in the forefront of your mind. Enough to recognize which parts of the body laid before you are the remains of humanity and which are purely Typhon. There's surprisingly little of the latter, now that the Specter is actually cut open - even though many of the bones and human organs are sublimated by the transformation, a lot of them have been repurposed.

For what, you don't know. But it's enough to follow the way the nervous system has overtaken everything and the way the black bulge of muscles only connect to each other.

> GHOST: Phantoms still have bone structures, right? They're not this... wispy.

"Not exactly the term I would use," Alex says, faintly amused, "but largely in line with our observations. What do you make of the... hair tendrils, for lack of a better term?"

You hum and move around the table, to the far end of the remains. You don't touch, but your hands hover just shy over the Typhon flesh.

(Not that it probably matters in your case. Typhon contaminants, if there are any, wouldn't affect you.)

> GHOST: Sure deflated a lot when it died. Mostly nervous tissues...  
>  GHOST: Probably sensory for /something/, but hell if I know what.  
>  GHOST: Hard to tell without a microscope, but I don't think most of it reaches the skin.

You look up at Alex, now on the other side of the table, eyes on his phone.

> GHOST: You didn't need me to tell you that, though.

"No," he says. "But I thought it worth asking, to see if you had any additional insight." You hope, for his sake, that he's looking for your insight as the Typhon hybrid, and not as a replacement for Morgan.

> GHOST: Sorry, I've got nothing.  
>  GHOST: If you forced me to guess, I'd say that they're some kind of sensory organism, but I couldn't say for sure.  
>  GHOST: There weren't any on Talos, right?

"Correct," Alex says. "Or at the Pytheas station - some of the data that the moon base sent over before it went dark indicated that they had a few other types of Typhon as well, but none like this."

You withdraw your hand away from the dessicated Specter to tap your fingers on the table.

> GHOST: So if we assume it is for sensing something, then it's something that can only be found on Earth.  
>  GHOST: As though that narrows it down much.

Alex chuckles. "Well, it's a starting point. Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?"

Moment of truth.

> GHOST: Heard you're expecting a call from Morgan tomorrow.

Alex is too carefully controlled for you to see everything that happens on his face as he reads your words. There's only a slight flare of his nostrils and a tiny raise of his eyebrows before he looks back at you.

"You heard right," he says at some length. "I hope you won't hold it against me, keeping his status from you."

For a moment, you consider snapping, _What did you think would happen, then?_ But after a moment's consideration, you respond differently, hoping you won't regret it.

> GHOST: I admit I probably wouldn't have trusted anything you told me on your word alone.  
>  GHOST: But I wish you'd at least told me that he was alive.  
>  GHOST: I didn't even know that for sure until yesterday.

"I'm sorry," Alex says. You think he's even sincere. (It's so hard to tell. If guilt makes his thoughts any heavier than normal, you wouldn't even notice.) "It wasn't my intention to deceive you."

And that - something rises in you, some invisible charge, and you let it ripple through you and out. It's not _intended_ as a threat, but the way the lights and Alex's phone screen all flicker briefly certainly works as one.

> GHOST: Make sure it stays that way.

The weight of his thoughts grows warm, not like family but like a processor almost overheating. You make it a point to avoid looking at how he reassesses you.

(Just because you're capable of human empathy, doesn't make you _harmless_. In some ways... Typhon don't carry grudges.)

The lights stabilize, and Alex looks up at them for a moment before he nods. The processor-heat around his mind fades away, and it's only then that _you_ really relax the internal, held-tight parts of yourself.

What is it about this man - objectively harmless, unarmed and without any Typhon mods that might make him dangerous - that always sets you so close to the edge of fight or flight?

"There's a conference room we usually use when Morgan calls," Alex says, as though the last thirty seconds of flickering lights didn't just happen. "It's attached to the rec room, almost directly over the kitchens. I imagine it will be easy enough to find."

> GHOST: Yeah, sounds simple enough.  
>  GHOST: What time?

"Hard to say. Sometime in the evening, but beyond that..." Alex pauses and adjusts his glasses. "Morgan is the one who initiates the calls, based on when he can get somewhere secure from the Typhon for a bit of time."

And sometimes that means hiding from a Nightmare to wait it out. Or, probably, killing one. Alex doesn't say it, but you can hear it clearly enough.

> GHOST: Makes sense, I guess.  
>  GHOST: I'll just have to be there early.

Like hell you're giving Alex any time to say anything without you there, just in case.

"Morgan was quite interested to hear about the results of your simulation," Alex says. "I'm sure he's been anticipating meeting you, though perhaps not this soon."

You wonder if Morgan has any idea that Alex didn't actually tell you he was alive. Knowing Alex, almost certainly not.

> GHOST: I'm looking forward to meeting him, too.  
>  GHOST: Too bad it won't be in person.

"Give it time," Alex says. "This might be enough to convince him to return, at least for a time."

Is that his angle? Use you to get Morgan to come back?

> GHOST: Only if he wants to.  
>  GHOST: I /can/ be patient, you know.

"Then you have that over him," Alex says with a chuckle.

> GHOST: I think Morgan has more patience than you might think.

After all, he had enough of it to put up being locked in a relatively small facility with Alex for a couple months before he got fed up and left.

> GHOST: But unless it's a video call, I'd better go. See if Danielle can get a text to voice set up for me.

"That would be for the best," Alex agrees. "Are you going to be using Morgan's voice files?"

> GHOST: Haven't decided yet.

"I doubt he would mind," Alex says. (You opt to ignore that, as Alex is far from an authority on what Morgan thinks about anything.) "Chief Sho should have a copy, but if not, I can send you one from my terminal later tonight."

> GHOST: Thanks. Later.

Hopefully you won't actually need that, because the last thing you want to do is owe Alex anything like a favor.

\----

Compared to seeking out Alex, dropping Danielle a message is easy.

> GHOST: Heard you might be able to get a text-to-speech set up for me.  
>  D.SHO: Oh, yeah. I can do that.  
>  D.SHO: Just come down to the IT office and don't mind Steve freaking out when you walk in.  
>  GHOST: Where's IT?  
>  D.SHO: If you leave medical and go the opposite way from the cafeteria, we're wedged into a little office there.  
>  GHOST: Gotcha. Seeya soon.  
>  D.SHO: If you go past the kitchen, bring me a snack!

You aren't, but you swing past the kitchens on your way anyway. For a banana.

On your way through, you pause long enough to wave at Kevin and Austin, who are having some kind of intense discussion over their meal.

"Hey," Austin says, returning your wave. "Up to anything?"

You hold up your banana.

> GHOST: On my way to IT to get Danielle to give me a 'voice.' Thought I'd bring a bribe.

"Didn't think she was into bananas," Austin says, his eyes on the fruit in your hand. He pauses there, as though expecting something, but then continues, "I'll make it quick then - what do you think of Ingram?"

> GHOST: I don't know, he seems fine?  
>  GHOST: I'm glad Morgan didn't shoot him the way I did, if that means anything.  
>  GHOST: Don't tell him I said that.

"Secret's safe with us," Kevin says.

> GHOST: He came to see me a couple times, which was nice.  
>  GHOST: Seems to feel pretty out of place with the actual TranStar people.  
>  GHOST: Why?

"Secret security officer talk," Austin says. "Thanks. Don't tell him we asked."

> GHOST: Secret's safe with me.  
>  GHOST: See you guys later.

Now, what was that about? You don't go poking around, but you can't help but mentally watch them as you go, like there are eyes in the back of your head attuned to just their thoughts. Neither of them seems anxious, at least not anywhere above the baseline level of 'Talos I survivor,' so you decide that it's probably not worth worrying about.

You file it away for later, though, just in case, and make a mental note to keep a closer eye on Aaron the next time you run into him.

The IT office is actually labelled, if it can be called that, by a Sharpie-on-masking-tape sign on the door. You recognize Danielle's handwriting from her character sheet in the sim. Directly below that is a similar piece of tape that reads "SECURITY OPERATOR - LESLIE" in Morgan's even-more-familiar writing. There are two minds behind it, not counting the Operator; you easily recognize Danielle, which makes the other Steve Folson.

You knock and wait for the "Just come in!" before opening the door.

Inside is mostly server towers, with two desks arranged so that their occupants sit back to back and one wall with a large number of screens. Leslie, with a masking-tape label on her side just like January's, hovers in front of the bank of monitors, two cables trailing from the underside of her shell.

In the chairs, of course, are Danielle and Folson, the latter watching you with nervous, wide eyes. Danielle, for her part, spins to look at you and immediately lets out a snort. "A banana? Really?"

> GHOST: What, not going to show me how to eat them properly?

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever, give it here. I'm starving."

You hand her the banana and your phone and lean against the side of her desk where you can keep an eye on the more unfamiliar element in the room. Folson makes, and then immediately breaks, eye contact with you, turning back to his screen. You hear him mutter "Creepy," under his breath, and then he says to Danielle, "Chief, we had another anomaly like ten minutes ago, are you sure this is alright?"

Danielle makes a noise around a mouthful of banana and swallows, jabbing her thumb at you. "Pretty sure that's just this guy talking to people, Steve, I told you that."

"I just want to be sure," he replies, turning to look at you. "The last time we had those kinds of errors, there was that Technopath out at the main gate - "

You clear your throat.

> GHOST: I use a Technopath-based Typhon mod, so that makes sense.  
>  GHOST: If it's setting off alarms when I do that, then the system's working.

Folson frowns at the messages on his screen, then at the matching error, and sighs. "Fine, you've got a point. Do you have to do it to every phone in the facility, though?"

"That's why he's here," Danielle says. She takes your phone and hooks it up to a cable hanging from the bulk of the server tower directly in front of her. "We're getting a text-to-speech set up - hey, Ghost, what voice did you want on this?"

> GHOST: Hadn't really decided.  
>  GHOST: Put Morgan's on for now I guess.  
>  GHOST: If I hate it I can always have you change it, right?

"Yeah," she says. "And it'll probably make it easier the once in a blue moon you say something more than 'Thanks' or 'Hey' aloud."

> GHOST: Hey, I also apologize.

That earns you another eye roll, Danielle biting into the banana decisively rather than replying. Folson glances back and forth between the two of you for a moment before turning back to his screen.

"Right," he says. "Then I'm turning the alarm off on your phone so it stops throwing up false positives."

> GHOST: Probably a good idea.  
>  GHOST: Thanks. Didn't mean to make your job harder.

"When you're done with that, go ahead and get out of here," Danielle says. "You're getting cranky again - did you skip lunch?"

"I had a yogurt," Folson says. You relax enough to take your eyes off him, glancing at the security screens instead, and just listening to the clicking of computer keys.

Something in one of the screens catches your eye at the same time Leslie makes an alarmingly loud beep. "Typhon organism detected," says the synthesized version of Danielle's voice. "Notifig security personnel."

Your phone on Danielle's desk beeps loudly - apparently you're considered security, or at least close enough to count - but goes ignored as both she and Folson spin their chairs towards the screens.

"Is that..." Folson says, leaning forward and squinting at the black shape on the screen.

"Can't tell," Danielle says, and then more quietly, "Fuck. Leslie, tell Sarah it might be a Telepath."

You feel the hair on your arms rise.

"Notifying Chief Elazar," Leslie says. "Engaging preliminary lockdown procedures."

"Are Rodney and Mickey in for the night?" Folson asks.

Danielle leans over to glance at her monitor. "Mickey's in the cafeteria, but Rodney's still out there - Leslie!"

"Notifying," the Operator replies, the synthesized voice lacking in the real Danielle's tone of heightened anxiety. "Multiple Typhon organisms spotted. Approaching main gate."

"Shit," Folson says.

Danielle digs into her pocket, presses her phone into your hands. "Here, take mine - if it's a Telepath, you've got to get out there."

You nod, taking the phone - slightly larger than yours, and you know as you pass your hands over it that it has a much better processor, not that it really matters - and dropping it into your pocket.

> GHOST: Right - tell Sarah I'm on my way.  
>  GHOST: Get Leslie to grab Aaron while she's at it.

"Right," Danielle says. "Morgan's Typhon mod theory - can't hurt."

"Not like anyone would miss him anyway," Folson says.

You stop only for long enough to level a glare at the man before you're out the door, shifting yourself down the hallway and running the steps between. Whatever words you have to say about that, they'll have to wait.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please take this slightly longer than usual chapter with my apologies for the delay
> 
> i have kind of had. a week. for the last two or three weeks.

By the time you arrive at the main gate, the Telepath is close enough to be confirmed. Other announcements trail across the phone, but you're only paying half attention to that. All personnel confirmed secure is the only one you really care about.

> S.ELAZAR: Rani will meet you at the gate.  
>  S.ELAZAR: She's the only member of the security team with Typhon mods.  
>  S.ELAZAR: No rushing out without backup.  
>  D.SHO: Got it.  
>  D.SHO: Hopefully I won't need the help.  
>  S.ELAZAR: We're all hoping for that.

You beat Rani and Aaron both there, and have to resist the urge to fidget at having to wait for them. They arrive practically in step, Rani looking all-business and Aaron slightly shocked at having been called up here. The Blackbox Operator follows after them.

> D.SHO: Right. Ignore that I'm on Danielle's phone - what do we have?  
>  D.SHO: There's a Telepath and two of those Specters, the new guys from the other day.  
>  D.SHO: They're fast but at least as far as I've seen, they only do melee.

Rani nods. "So we shoot the hell out of them from range."

> D.SHO: Not quite. What mods do you have, Rani?

"Regeneration," she says. "I only got any because - "

And the way she glances out at the Telepath says everything.

> D.SHO: Right. Okay, if we've got a Q-beam in here, use that. Otherwise, whatever you've got that does the most damage. Aaron, chuck that Recycler charge with your telekinesis - it'll be better aim at that distance than anyone's arm.

He nods, taking the indicated charge from the small array of weapons in the case. It hovers half an inch above his fingers, and you can feel the slight ripple from the pressure his mind exerts on it.

> D.SHO: One charge won't take a Telepath out, but it'll be hurting. Finish it off with whatever you've got that isn't going to get me in the splash damage. I'll take care of the Specters.

"Both of them?" Aaron asks, glancing outside.

> D.SHO: Don't worry about me. They're fast, but that's not that terrible.  
>  D.SHO: I'll take that over a Technopath in zero-G any day.

Rani shivers. "No thank you." She takes a shotgun from the case along with an upgraded pistol, then hands a pistol to Aaron as well.

He takes it without putting down the recycler charge, just moving his hand away from it and leaving it hovering. "Right," he says, seeming a little more confident with the gun on his hip. "Ready?"

You consider the weapons options, but opt to leave most of them, just in case. At close range, your best allies are going to be your own abilities and something sharp.

> D.SHO: Either of you have a knife?

Rani fishes a folding knife out of her pocket and hands it to you. "If I didn't know what you are..."

You chuckle, and give her a thumbs up. You can see where taking on a bunch of Typhon with only a knife seems like suicide.

(Then again, it's not that much better than fighting them with only a wrench.)

Rani nods at you and takes a deep breath. You feel her thoughts go still, like a rippleless lake, as she counts down. "Go in three, two, one..."

The doors open.

You barely wait for the quiet beeping of the activated recycler charge to go sailing past you before you're in motion, one shift, then a second taking you close enough to engage. The space in front of you warps, the charge sucking everything in before spitting it back out - a handful of stray organic material blocks scatter into the air, the remains of the plants unfortunate enough to get caught in the blast.

The Telepath, as you'd predicted, doesn't immediately fall. But you _feel_ its pain, in the space between you and everything else, and then you feel it reaching out to try and grab your mind -

You don't so much slip away from it as you feel it pull back, and that's the last attention you can spare it. The Specters are your primary objective, and barely damaged by the charge, they're going to be more of a problem.

Another shift carries you past the Telepath entirely, and you call a concussive blast to your fingertips to fire at one of the Specters. It hits cleanly, pushing the Typhon back. Then the other one is on you and you return its attacks slash for slash, leaving a bloody slice across one of its 'arms.'

Then it's another shift, around to behind it, and electricity that you call up to your hands this time. The static burst makes the Specters both seize up, stunned and twisted into uncanny sculptures of black. Just a moment, but long enough for you to slice the injured one open enough that it crumples entirely.

The other one recovers, and flares its 'hair.' Immediately, you're hit by something that isn't a shockwave, but may as well be for the effect it has. Vertigo swells in your stomach, like the whole world has suddenly been turned on its side, like the familiar, hated sensation of zero gravity.

It's just a brief moment, but you don't dare move your feet. You'll fall if you do. And the Specter is at least intelligent enough to take advantage of the opening, rushing you.

In spite of the vertigo, you try to dodge anyway, so that the attack becomes a slice into your side instead of an impalement. The half-recovered grasp you had on your sense of balance jerks back out of your reach. You drop the knife.

You let go.

For what seems like a too-long instant, as you release Morgan's form and assume your true shape, everything is once again too loud. The Specter in front of you, a wavering chord, the dying Telepath stretched taut like the skin of a drum. Aaron and Rani, two gathered points of light, and the birds and the insects and even the plants, and behind it all -

The writhing tendrils that were your arms seize hold of the Specter, and you rip it apart. It dies against your mind, too fast to even truly be in pain. Before you can turn, the Telepath splits, breaks, fades away, and only you and the Coral are left.

The Coral. It is distant, but less out of reach than it was. You can feel where it must be built, peaked over the cities on not-too-far-away islands, where there were enough human minds to build it.

You feel it, and you turn away. It hurts, like turning your back on an old friend, like leaving behind the only life you've ever known, but you turn away.

There's a thread, underneath it all, that pulls on you, but then there are humans, too-bright against your mind, but familiar, touched in their minds by Typhon power, and it's them you turn towards.

One of them is trying to get your attention. Some part of you realizes that there are words, even if you can't process them as anything but sound, and you find the Morgan part of your mind and cling to it until they take form again.

" - scared the hell out of me," Aaron is saying, from just outside your reach. "Hey, are you listening? Ghost?"

You nod, which takes a surprising amount of effort in your Phantom form, and turn back into a human shape. Your telepathic sense goes blissfully dull in comparison.

"Sorry," you say, when you have a voice again.

"What was that about?" Aaron asks. You think the expression on his face is concern. "I've never seen you like that."

"Later," you say quickly. Danielle's phone is still in your pocket, but even with the aid of that, you don't think you have the ability to fully put the last five, maybe ten minutes into words. Aaron eyes you skeptically, but seems to accept it.

"Come on," he says. "Rani's having a meltdown, we need to get you both to medical."

You nod and risk a glance at the wound in your side. It's bleeding sluggishly, but it doesn't seem like it will hamper you getting to medical. It still hurts, but the pain seems somehow distant. If you have to carry Rani, you could probably manage it, but you hope it won't come to that.

When you follow Aaron inside, Rani at the least doesn't seem injured, but she's got her face pressed into her hands and is breathing like she's trying not to hyperventilate. "Don't touch me," she says without looking up.

You nudge the Typhon gate sealed behind you with a touch of your mind and step closer to her, but you obey her instructions and keep your hands back and where she can see them. (And hands. You're very careful to keep them hands.)

"Medical," you say, putting the best attempt you have at authority into it. "Come on."

"Right," she says between her hands. "Just... just a minute."

When she does pull her hands away from her face, the first thing she looks at is the wound on your side. You offer her an arm to lean on, and she considers it for a moment before shaking her head.

"Not you," she says. "Sorry. Ingram, can you go report to the Chief?"

"Only if you're sure you two will be okay," he says.

"We'll be fine," Rani asserts, and it's the first thing she's really seemed like herself about. You very deliberately bend your thoughts away from hers. "Go report, and tell Sarah we're headed to medbay."

She takes another deep breath. Aaron waits for you to nod before he jogs off in the direction of the security office. You and Rani proceed at a significantly slower pace towards the medical bay, neither of you saying anything.

\----

Just before you reach medica, Rani says, "That was almost worse than having it try to grab me. It just passed my over, like I was one of them."

You don't, can't say anything to that, so you just adjust where you're using your shirt as a makeshift bandage at your side. At least the blood coming from it is still red.

"I guess I'm talking to the wrong person for that," Rani says. She comes to a stop in front of Emmanuella's door, hesitates. "I don't know why I let you guys push me into coming down here. I'm not hurt."

"Quiet," you suggest, coming up beside her to open the door. There's usual greeting from the Operator.

"I guess," Rani says, and you give her enough space to go through the door without brushing against you before following her in.

Emmanuella looks like she was expecting you, at least, with three medkits stacked on the end of her desk and exam gloves already on. "Not as bad as I expected," she says. "Rani, take a seat, I'm going to take a look at this idiot first."

You chuckle slightly and pull the shirt away from your wound. The blood around it is mostly dried now. Emmanuella bends slightly and calls the Operator over to patch you up.

"Anything else?" she asks.

You shake your head. "Vertigo's passed," you say, which just gets you raised eyebrows.

"Right," Emmanuella says, leaving you to the Operator while she turns to Rani. The pain you had pushed mostly to the edge of your awareness starts to fade, which just makes it impossible for you to not notice anymore. You wince, and try to not use your mind to push the Operator to work faster, turning your attention to the two women instead so that you have something else to focus on.

"I'm fine," Rani says.

"You're not injured," Emmanuella corrects. "That doesn't mean you're fine. I don't need a psych specialization to see that."

Rani sighs. "You would have been better at it than Dr. Kohl anyway. Fine, I'm not okay, the Telepath made me panic and this guy going full Phantom didn't help. Do we have to talk about this?"

You try not to wince, and shift to watch the Operator instead. Curious as you are, you don't actually want to eavesdrop on this, but there's not enough room in medical for any real privacy. The sooner you can leave the room, then better.

"Only if you want to," Emmanuella says. "And Mathias Kohl wouldn't have known impartial listening if it punched him the face at his graduation."

That at least makes Rani smile, and then there's a buzz at the door. Emmanuella stands and goes over to the keypad. "Who is it?"

"I just need to borrow Ghost," Danielle's voice comes through the intercom. "He's still got my phone."

Emmanuella looks at you, taking stock of where the Operator is finishing up your wound, and nods. "You can keep him," she says into the microphone. "Just a minute."

"Thanks," you mutter sarcastically. The Operator floats away from you, and you rub at the repaired skin before lifting your shirt. "Stains?" you ask.

"Wash it with shampoo," Emmanuella says without skipping a beat. "Now get out of here before Chief Sho decides to come get you."

You duck out the door, secretly relieved, and give Danielle a thumbs-up before digging into your pocket to hand her her phone back.

She gives you yours in exchange, now in a case with a belt clip, and you clip it in place. "Everything good?" she asks, and seems unsatisfied with your nod. "Come on, try it out, then."

You roll your eyes to hide that the idea makes you a little nervous, now that you're on the cusp of it. You fiddle with the phone's volume buttons for a minute before you actually do so.

> GHOST: Testing, testing.

"Testing, testing," comes the synthesized version of the familiar voice. You don't really relax until you hear how toneless it is, so different from the January in the sium and the Morgan whose voice you've actually heard. "Okay," it continues to read off your text, "That's not so bad."

"It'll do for a phone call, at least," Danielle says. You raise your eyebrows, and she shrugs. "You're pretty transparent, sometimes. Especially when Alex's phone was erroring earlier."

"Guess you caught me," the phone says.

"Not like I can blame you," she says. "I think anyone would be curious about Morgan in your position. You might not want to go spreading around that you're going to attend, though, otherwise you'll end up with a huge audience."

You think that it wouldn't be any more awkward for you if the whole facility showed up, but you understand where she's coming from. It's probably different if you haven't been hyper-aware of everyone watching you from the moment you had a concept of self.

"Are you going to be there?" you ask instead.

"I wasn't planning on it," she says. "It's not like Morgan and I are really that close. But if you think you might need moral support..."

"I'd rather not be alone with Alex for it," you say. "But I'll try asking Mikhaila first."

"Don't worry about it," Danielle says. "I can show, it's no skin off my back."

"Thanks," you say with your own voice. It isn't much warmer than the synthesized one, but you hope that your smile helps cover it.

Danielle rolls her eyes. "You know, I tried to stay out of the path of the Yus and their mess on Talos," she says.

"Probably wouldn't have done much good," you say. "They kind of pull everything to them eventually. If it hadn't been the containment breach, it would have been something."

"I'm counting you in that, you know," she says. "Morgan's a middle child now, as far as I'm concerned."

"Maybe that thing would have been me, then," you say.

"What, born in a test tube in Psychotronics instead of a lab in Hawaii?" she says, laughing.

"It's something they were considering," you say, folding your arms. "Project Cobalt, or something like that. One of the ideas Morgan had before he started ripping his own memories in and out. I remember seeing something about it in the sim, which means he remembered at least that much about it."

"And he always used himself as a guinea pig first," Danielle says. "Yeah, okay, I could see it. I don't think they would have let me anywhere near Psychotronics even if that did happen, though."

"Probably not," you agree.

"And everyone on the Station would still be..." She glances off to the side, and sighs. "Well, no point getting hung up on what-ifs. This is the world we have now. Now go put a shirt back on."

You freeze - you'd almost forgotten, considering that the feeling of air on your human skin is so much less than it is in your Phantom form. Danielle must see something in your face, because she starts to laugh as she turns away, giving you a little bit of a wave as she goes.

You look at the shirt you're still holding in your free hand and shrug.

\----

You take care of the shirt and then go back to your room, lying on your back in bed to take care of a few messages before you fall asleep.

First, you drop a message to Mikhaila -

> GHOST: Hey, can I ask a favor?

And start writing up a report on the Specter's vertigo-inducing abilities while you wait. Rather than submit it anywhere in particular, you just start texting into the Typhon science channel on the facility's main communication hub (though you CC Sarah and Alex to it, just in case). You're about midway through when she replies.

> M.ILYUSHIN: If it's about tomorrow, I'll be there.  
>  GHOST: Thanks. Danielle offered, but... Well.  
>  GHOST: When it comes to Alex, I'd rather not be alone with him for something like this.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: Does he scare you that badly?

You become aware of the fact that you're biting your lip, and roll over onto your side.

> GHOST: It's not that. I'm not scared of /him/.  
>  GHOST: But I feel like I can't trust my thoughts around him.  
>  GHOST: Pretty sure that feeling is a big part of why Morgan left, too.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: Well, you have better instincts than he does, if nothing else.  
>  GHOST: Thanks. I think.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: Is Alex the only thing about it that worries you?  
>  GHOST: I'm not going to pretend I'm not nervous, but I feel like I can probably handle Morgan.  
>  GHOST: Kind of a unique position we're in, and all. If I'm worried about anything, it's that we're not actually different at all.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: You are different.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: Whether you are better or worse, I haven't decided.  
>  GHOST: You're so comforting sometimes. :p  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: In the simulation, you also chose to give me my father's records. Why?  
>  GHOST: I don't know. Because it seemed right, I guess.

You close your eyes to think, just letting the words flow into the phone without overthinking them.

> GHOST: It was the thing you wanted the most in the world. The thing that put you on that station in the first place.  
>  GHOST: Even if you were going to die - even if we were all going to die - you deserved to have that.  
>  GHOST: It was important. That was all.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: More important than keeping 'your' reputation and keeping me on your side?  
>  GHOST: I don't think I really thought about those things at all. I'm still not sure I understand them.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: I see. Do you want to know what Morgan said, when I asked him the same question?  
>  GHOST: You're going to tell me anyway.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: He said that he didn't want to lie to me anymore.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: That even if he didn't remember, he wanted to make it right, even if it meant that I hated him.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: He didn't remember, but he still felt guilt for what he'd done.  
>  GHOST: I feel like that's Morgan during the outbreak in a nutshell.  
>  GHOST: But I think I see your point.

Even if you do things the same, the reasons behind them are different. The way you process those decisions is different.

> M.ILYUSHIN: You held yourself to an objective sense of right and wrong, while Morgan's was more personal.  
>  GHOST: If I'm honest, I think that's the point where I started to understand that a sense of right and wrong even existed. As something I could experience myself, rather than something that was just told to me.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: I believe they call that "growing up."  
>  GHOST: Man, I had a fast childhood, then.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: Ten days old and already an adult.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: Well, you are as jaded as the rest of our generation, so I suppose it will be fine.

You chuckle into your pillow and roll over.

> GHOST: Thanks.  
>  GHOST: And for tomorrow, too.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: Don't thank me yet.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: You will probably regret getting Danielle, Alex, and I in an enclosed space together.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: I believe Chief Elazar once likened us to the two halves of the jaws of a beast that would tear him apart.  
>  GHOST: Sounds like exactly the kind of backup I might need, honestly.  
>  GHOST: If anything happens, I'll just sit back, turn into a bowl of popcorn, and eat myself.

There's a longer pause than usual before her response.

> M.ILYUSHIN: Oh, you are a problem sometimes.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: I ought to be the one thanking you, I have not laughed often these last few months.  
>  GHOST: Extra butter?  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: Don't push your luck.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: I need to sleep.  
>  M.ILYUSHIN: Try to get some rest, if you can.  
>  GHOST: I don't sleep as much as a human, I think, but yeah, good idea.  
>  GHOST: Sleep well.

You finish up your little bit of report, post it, and tuck your phone under your pillow in an attempt to remove the temptation of checking it repeatedly. Eventually, you fall into something that could be called sleep.

\----

_White walls, white sheets, all blinding. Even if you weren't so familiar with them, it's unmistakably a laboratory._

_The hair on the back of your neck hasn't gone down in what feels like weeks. It's been at least days, surely. You lose all sense of time when you sleep._

_It's enough to almost make you miss Talos. Staying up for days at a time, jumped up on coffee and psi hypos, couldn't have been good for you in the long term, but at least you know how long the outbreak lasted. You can't remember falling asleep until the shuttle was already gone, until -_

_Here, there's only silence, until someone calls for you._

_"Again, Dr. Yu."_

\----

You wake and stare at the ceiling, hearing the echoes of a voice and missing the sound of running water past your windows.

Except they're not your windows. They're Morgan's, all of it is Morgan's, Morgan's windows upstairs in the room that sets you so on edge -

_Just what am I remembering?_ you ask the ceiling with your eyes. The feeling in your stomach remains unsettled. You pull your phone out from under your pillow and take stock of the time - 5AM, you slept a little longer than usual - and the messages you got in the night.

> S.ELAZAR: Do you think that the appearance of the Specters means that Typhon activity near the facility will increase?  
>  GHOST: Objectively, it's too soon to tell.  
>  GHOST: My gut feeling? Yes.

She's offline at the moment, so you don't bother waiting for a reply. You scroll through the chat conversations of the night before and then abandon your phone to go take a shower.

Typhon attacks aside, just what are you supposed to do with yourself now? The idea of taking over Morgan's projects, whatever he left behind, doesn't especially appeal, though you'd probably be good at it. (In fact, you'd probably be at least decent at whatever your threw yourself at. A benefit of getting your brain from an almost ridiculous polymath.)

You wind up wandering to the labs with your usual mug of coffee eventually - no one else is there, which gives you some peace to read and consider. Curiosity gets the better of you, and you drop into a seat at Alex's computer console, spinning the chair before settling in.

(He's changed his passwords since the sim, but it doesn't really matter when you can unlock the computer with your mind, a bit of rattling around not unlike the act of physically picking a lock must be.)

The top set of files, left open, are the data collected so far on the Specters, your notes on the vertigo ability copy-pasted into a section on their abilities with a few more notes underneath.

_If Ghost was this strongly affected, it may be even worse for true humans. At the very least, we don't have the ability to change forms, which seems to have been his primary advantage in the last encounter._

_Note to Security: Prioritize Specters immediately after Telepaths until a countermeasure is confirmed._

Well, that's not exactly untrue, though something about the separation of you from true humans makes your skin prickle.

The next set of files is more Specter work, this time the preliminary connectomes for a levitation neuromod. You follow that down a rabbit hole into the rest of the Typhon mods, some of them quite familiar, others not as much.

That tunneling comes to a sudden end when you hit the Telepath-based abilities. Mindjack is locked down, under not one or two but three layers of security, four if you count the overall security of Alex's computer that you simply breezed through. A gentle poke at it reveals that there's actually only one way to access them, which is through the simulation. That's more than a little eyebrow-raising.

If you wanted to take the time, you could probably dig your way through it. But what would be the point? It's not like you want those mods anyway. It would just be to prove you could, and you would like to at least pretend that you're above that.

You're just settling in to see what kind of notes Alex has written about you when you sense his approach, a heavy mind entering the labs. You do _not_ freeze like a busted child in the cookie jar.

You carefully consider your options, including turning into a mug, and decide to just own it. So when Alex comes in, you're boredly spinning around in his chair like you don't have a care in the world.

You become aware that he's actually entered the room by means of a loud sigh. "I don't know why I'm surprised," he says. "I should have seen this coming."

"Morning," you say out loud, giving the chair another spin before you put your feet on the corner of the desk.

"You could at least pretend to have some shame at getting caught," he says, coming back to his desk and setting his thermos of coffee next to your mug. "Unless that was your intention?"

"Nope," you say with your mouth, popping the 'p' slightly. You ignore the pointed look he gives you and don't get out of his chair, either. "I was just bored," you use your phone to elaborate. "It's pretty easy to have too much time on your hands when you only sleep five hours a night."

"I'm sure you could find something productive to do," Alex says, and apparently at that point he gives up and takes the chair from Igwe's workstation.

"You're not my real dad," you quip, grudgingly moving to the side so that he can actually access the computer. Reading over his shoulder is fine.

The comment makes the weight of his mind bob up and down against your senses. You have to examine his face closely to recognize that he's uneasy - if there's one thing Alex is good at, you suppose, it's looking like he's in control even what he isn't.

"I expected that the times that you show similarity to Morgan would feel different," is all he says, an ambiguous answer if you ever heard one.

You lean forward just long enough to take your mug off the desk and take a sip out of it. You can guess what he expected - comforting, familiar nostalgia, something like that.

"I won't apologize for not being him," you say. "But I won't apologize for being like him, either."

"As well you shouldn't," he says. "I have only myself to blame."

You don't know what to say to that. You lower your mug slowly and sit up from the chair. "Right," your phone says, and the monotone hides how awkward the words feel. If only your face did the same. "See you this afternoon, then."

Sometimes when you don't know what to do, it's best to cut your losses.

\----

By noon, you've wandered into the kitchen and discovered the wonders of stress-cooking, to the vaguely disturbed amusement of Franz Klinger.

"Just don't try to make a replacement Skillet to go with your Morgan's double act," he says. You can't even manage to be offended by the comment, considering the source of literally all of your knowledge of cooking.

Instead, you shrug and finish ladling the dumpling soup you've just made into a bowl for yourself - it's only a small bowl, so there's going to be plenty for anyone else who might want some, assuming they're willing to sample Typhon cooking.

You don't think much of it until you're sitting down with your phone again and you see that Franz actually posted an alert about it to the main channel.

> F.KLINGER: So for those of you who missed a certain someone's stress cooking, the closest substitute you're going to get left a thing of dumpling soup in the kitchen.  
>  F.KLINGER: First come first served, as usual.  
>  C.POPINGA: Soup!  
>  A.COOL: Probably shouldn't just call him substitute Morgan, Franz.  
>  A.COOL: Also, no fair, I'm still doing rounds.  
>  C.POPINGA: I'll eat yours for you.

Even as you're reading the chat, three people - Lisa, Alfred Rose, and Rodney S. Poole - come through the cafeteria and immediately disappear into the kitchens. Carlos appears and follows them at a sprint, nearly bowling Lisa over as she leaves.

You catch her eyes and raise your eyebrows. "I didn't think it'd be this popular," your phone says at a mental prod, sitting on the table next to you.

She shrugs. Alfred, coming up behind her with a bowl in hand, says, "I think we all just get desperate for a little variety. Franz does a weekly rotation and that's all there is sometimes."

You nod, turning back to your soup thoughtfully. It's something to do, at least.

\----

You're the first to arrive at the conference room in the afternoon. It's not that large - eight people would probably make it feel too crowded. There's a couple chairs scattered around the table, and a distinct gap that you can only assume is for Mikhaila. You take a seat next to the gap and zone out for a while with that coloring app on your phone, absently watching the movements of the minds in the facility.

You feel Danielle outside before she opens the door, and it's enough to pull you out of the near-trance you were in. You wave your free hand as she opens the door. "Damn," she says. "I thought I was here early. How long have you been here?"

You shrug one shoulder. "A while," you say out loud. A glance at your phone clock says it's been about twenty minutes, but it feels like it's been longer.

Danielle drops into the chair next to you and spins in it before propping her elbow on the table. "Don't you get bored?" she asks.

"Not exactly," you say with the phone in your hand, before setting it on the table in front of you. "Boredom only happens to humans, so if I can get into the Typhon headspace, I could probably sit here all day. But if I'm thinking like a human, then I need to be doing something."

"I guess that makes sense," she says. "And when you're nervous, you make soup?"

You shrug again. "Harder to find the Typhon spot if I'm nervous. Or thinking about Morgan."

"And today was both," Danielle agrees. She turns her chair around backwards, so that she can lean the back against the table, and pulls out her own phone to fidget with. "Be prepared to wait for a while, then," she says. "Morgan doesn't always call at a reliable time. It's usually within half an hour or so, but..."

"With you, Mikhaila, and Alex in the same room, I don't think it's going to get boring," you let the phone say.

Danielle chuckles. "If he's smart, Alex will just keep his mouth shut. Where are they, anyway?"

You hum, closing your eyes for a moment to listen with your telepathic sense. They're easy enough to find, especially since they're both together. Without any neuromods marking her out, it's almost harder to 'see' Mikhaila under the weight that Alex carries around with him.

"Coming now," you say. "They're at the elevator."

Danielle's eyes get a little wide, and she glances at the door. "And how did you - no, save it for when they get here, Alex will lose his damn mind if he doesn't hear this."

"That implies that he has a grip on it in normal circumstances," Mikhaila says, as the door opens. Considering that Alex is standing right behind her, frowning through his glasses, you _try_ to stifle your chuckle, to be polite. It doesn't entirely work.

Alex seems inclined to pretend that the comments didn't happen, instead crossing to the chair across from you and setting a laptop bag on the table. "Hear what?" he says neutrally, unzipping the case to pull the contents out.

"Some kind of psychic Typhon bullshit," Danielle says, waving one hand at you as though that's any kind of explanation. "He knew you were coming."

You can feel their eyes on you, the weight shifting in your direction, and for a moment it's tempting to shrink into your seat. Being a mug wouldn't save you from this particular scrutiny, however.

"Telepathic sense," you have the phone say for you, smashing the words across the screen faster than the toneless, computerized version of Morgan's voice can read them off. "I think it's a side effect of not being connected to the Coral anymore, or maybe I only notice it because of that. But everyone's thoughts feel a little different, and if I concentrate, I can sense almost the entire facility."

"Do you believe that all Typhon are capable of this?" Alex says, immediately slipping into his researcher persona, even as he finishes setting up what seems to be a satellite hookup.

"Sensing people, possibly, but they'd have to be able to... hear it over the Coral, so to speak. Recognizing people? I can't imagine any Typhon caring enough about any individual human to care."

"That might explain how the Specters are finding us, at least," Alex says, looking back at the technology in front of him. You're glad for the shift in his attention, feeling like you're sliding out from under the weight of it.

You glance to the side at Mikhaila, who has a thoughtful look on her face. "How do you identify individuals, then?" she asks.

"It depends on the person. I can tell if someone has Neuromods, and if they're Typhon-based or normal, so that makes you really obvious. Otherwise, it's kind of hard to describe? Alex is like gravity, Igwe's like a bunch of leaves blown in the wind, Danielle's like - it's like the electrical spark in a short before a fire starts."

Danielle laughs. "A firestarter, huh? I like that."

"It's not just that," you say. "You... Your thoughts jump over gaps easily. That's part of how _you_ feel."

Watching her out of the corner of your vision, you see her bite her lip before she hums thoughtfully. "Nope," she says after a moment. "Too esoteric for me. Unless the Typhon are using it to eat us, I'm not going to poke it with a stick."

"Is there anything else you can do with that sense?" Mikhaila asks, looking a bit concerned.

"Haven't tried," you say. "I picked up some thoughts from Emmanuella on accident the other day - doing that kind of thing intentionally seems. I don't know. Shifty, at best."

"How lucky we are that you have some morals," Mikhaila says dryly. If it weren't for her smile, you'd think the comment was intended to be sarcastic. She looks away from you, across the table at Alex. "Anything yet?"

Alex shakes his head. "Nothing. We'll just have to wait."

\----

So you wait. Occasionally answering more questions about your telepathic sense as they occur to Mikaila or Alex, you wait.

A little before the hour point, Danielle, at least, gives up. "Call me if he actually calls," she says, getting up out of her chair. "Otherwise, see you guys later."

"Later," you say, watching her go before you turn back to Alex, who is frowning rather intently at the satellite phone in front of him.

"He's never been this late before," is all that he says, before silence takes the group of you again. You zone out with your coloring app, and Mikhaila works on something on her phone at her seat.

Another hour.

"He's not calling, Alex," Mikhaila says.

"Morgan's never missed a call time before," Alex says. "He's just late, that's all."

You and Mikhaila exchange a glance.

"Go get something to eat," you say. "Both of you. I can sit and babysit the phone. All night, if I have to; I don't need as much sleep as a human, I can pull one all-nighter."

Alex watches you for a moment, before sighing. You feel the weight of his concentration lessen, just a hair. "All right," he concedes. "But call the moment anything happens. Even if it's at an unspeakable hour of the night."

"Of course," you say. As much as you'd relish the chance to talk to Morgan alone, without anyone else interfering, you're not even sure that your assurance is a lie.

Something like worry remains in your gut even after they leave. It stays there all night, into the morning, when you look up from hours of zoning out to see Danielle in her pajamas, leaning in through the door.

"Still nothing?" she says, and you shake your head.

"Nothing."


End file.
